Jury deliberating in Fla. tobacco trial

[onehandle]

Source: AP

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – A jury is deliberating a key phase in the first of 8,000 Florida lawsuits blaming health problems and deaths on tobacco companies.

The six-person Broward County jury must decide whether Stuart Hess was addicted to cigarette nicotine before he got lung cancer and died. If so, the jury would later decide any damages against the Philip Morris tobacco company.

The lawsuit by widow Elaine Hess is the first to go to trial since the Florida Supreme Court in 2006 threw out a $145 billion class-action jury award, ruling that each case had to be proven individually.

Hess' lawyers said Thursday he was hopelessly addicted to nicotine. The lawyer for Philip Morris said Hess chose not to quit despite known health risks.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090212/ap_on_bi_ge/florida_smokers_1

[bunnies]

1. Next up - Alcoholics suing Liquor companies.

:banghead:

[Politicalboi]

12. Well it makes more sense

Than suing tobacco. Alcohol fucks with your mind and and is more addictive than tobacco. I actually wish they would start suing them. Maybe it will get them to take their stupid commercials off the air like tobacco did in the 60's. I couldn't even imagine trying to stop drinking and seeing commercials with booze on it. I like to party and watching coke being lined up on a mirror gets me thinking.

[Bryn]

2. LOL

We have been warned about the dangers of smoking. I knew everything long before I started smoking. It was Stuart Hess' choice, his decision.

[Winterblues]

3. I hope it is worth it to you

Thousands of dollars spent every year just to feed your habit, not to even mention future health costs or public disdain. I know people at least get high from pot but all you get from tobacco is ??????

[bunnies]

4. How do you feel about chronic over-eaters?

:shrug: just curious.

[Mojorabbit]

5. There are benefits from nicotine

it is a drug. It is the delivery system that is problematic.

[onehandle]

8. I agree. It is a drug.

And the delivery system is the problem.

Spraying any other drug around in public would get you arrested pretty quick.

If nicotine junkies want to keep their habits, then they should do us all a favor and patch up to get their fix.

[Bryn]

13. Please get over your holier-than-thou non-smoker attitude.

I don't even smoke in my own house nor in public therefore it's none of your business whatever I do for vice. I am a light smoker, averaging 1 pack per two days Ultra Light for with coffee and wine. I am not a pothead, neither, hate it, dislike smell of pot. My ex-husband smoked pot everyday and he was very stoned all the time and smelly, too. I don't go around attacking people if they choose to smoke pot. Please get off your high horse and stop judging people, thank you very much.

[Javaman]

6. isn't the point here, not that cigs are bad for our health but that they are addictive?

we all know full well of the legendary warning on the side of each pack of cigs but it doesn't say a single thing about them being addictive.

that's the argument here.

logic and studies have proven that they are addictive but until the tobacco companies admit it, it's still a non-point.

They know that once they do admit it, the flood gates for law suits will bust open.

[bunnies]

7. I seem to remember a study that said fast food was as addictive as heroine.

Ohh think of all the fun lawsuits we'll have then. Oh and caffeine! We're gonna need more lawyers!

[Bryn]

14. I get your point

OK :hi:

[toopers]

15. My psych professor once told me . . . .

that anything that feels good is potentially addictive. I tend to agree. The FDA could force big tobacco to add the "addiction statement" if it wanted to. If the statement is not on the package of cigarettes then the FDA is to blame as much as any group.

[Winterblues]

16. You do know that Republicans in Congress made it so FDA could not regulate tobacco?

Tobacco is not managed by FDA. If it were it would have to be illegal. There is a lot of hazardous material in cigarettes including many deadly poisons. The Surgeon General said "There is NO safe exposure to second hand smoke" This was Bush*'s Surgeon General. IMO those people that inflict their "second hand smoke" onto the general public are deliberately trying to inflict harm. They know better. I have no problem with people smoking as long as they do so in the privacy of their home. It is when they choose to bring their problem into public that I "get on my high horse" so to speak. My right to breathe clean air outweighs their right to pollute.

[toopers]

17. The democrats control everything now . . .

and also during Clinton's early years. There has been ample opportunity for both parties to exert control and change things.

[jody]

9. A major problem with tobacco is the harm done by second-hand smoke to innocent people. n/t

[jdadd]

10. I guess My Mother is an exception to the rule....

She will be 95 March 23rd, She's been around second hand smoke most of her life although she has never smoked. I'll agree second hand smoke is an irritant especially to people with asthma,as well as unpleasant for non smokers to be around. But to me the dangers of second hand smoke is just more propaganda....

[jody]

11. If smoking is harmful to the smoker, IMO it's also harmful to those who breath second-hand smoke.

I know four sisters who all smoked heavily from their mid teens. All died with lung cancer in their mid 60s.

I also know several people who smoked heavily from their teens on and died of natural causes in their late 90s.

My family has grown tobacco for several centuries and we did not know the harm it caused until the 1940s.

Sadly, tobacco was once viewed as helpful while its harmful properties were covered up.

I'm glad tobacco growing on our farm is finally a thing of the past.