Should tobacco companies be held responsible for smoking related diseases - ppt?

Answer 1

The question of responsibility probably rests on how much information regarding the risks to health smoking poses was made available to smokers and when. Once the dangers became clear, it may be said that the companies should have had a duty of care to inform their customers of the risks to their health, as indeed happens nowadays. The counter argument from their point of view may be that having made customers aware of the dangers of smoking, if the customer chooses to continue smoking, that is the customers decision and responsibility. The main point of course is, for how long did the producers know the dangers and not tell their customers? Did the industry in general act in such a way as to suppress this information whilst maximising profits? Once the game was up, the producers, realising their prime markets would begin to decline, then began to aggressively market their potential killer products to developing nations where there have been reports of free samples of tobacco products given to children. Such behaviour is rightly frowned upon but to the producers, its just good business. If this was a car manufacturer selling vehicles with a history of fatal brake failures and the facts were suppressed, the result may well have been a ban on sales of the car as it represents a danger to the public, both buyer and passer by and this of course brings in to play the subject of the effects on non smokers exposed to passive smoking.