Raise them in smoke!

The whole world has taken up arms against American tobacco companies

In the American restaurant, the smoker is driven into a special compartment. In California, a law prohibiting smoking in public places has been adopted. Over the past 10 - 15 years, the American smoker in the eyes of his compatriots has turned into a monster in the human race: exhaling poisonous smoke, he harms the health of others and, moreover, is more often sick, which means that good non -smokers pay for his treatment. Taxes pay everything!

But what about the basic American values? It would seem that a person has the right to free choice: I want to reduce my life, I reduce, I want to get sick - I'm sick. But the American smoker does not appeal to the principles of individualism. Instead, he willingly blames for his imperfection to tobacco companies. It turns out that they are to blame for everything: they seduce the weaknesses to inhale toxic smoke and exhale it in the nose is strong -willed, but defenseless.

Smoking victims began to be filed with tobacco companies in court, demanding that they pay money compensation for lost health. At first, when the claims were individual, tobacco companies easily won them: after all, cigarette packs have been notifying for 34 years about how dangerous smoking is.

But gradually, the struggle against manufacturers of cigarettes turned into a nationwide campaign, politics began to actively participate in it. Now, on behalf of those whose health is undermined by smoking, collective civil lawsuits are excited against their poisoners, the last of which was won in Florida in mid -July. The court ruled that tobacco companies should compensate its victims with damage, which was estimated at $ 145 billion, is the largest amount of compensation for anything in the history of civil law.

The Americans condemn cigarette manufacturers much more unanimously than, for example, manufacturers of small arms. The right to wear it is perceived as an important part of the American tradition. True, it seems that a person who is freely choosing, shoot or not to shoot, somehow cope and not to smoke with a choice. But those who seek to lime tobacco companies are adamant: they say that cigarettes are made exclusively in order to poison and ultimately kill, while weapons, although they kill, are still produced for defense. It is hardly tobacco companies to fulfill the decision of the Florida Su- and pay huge millions. Their lawyers will submit an appeal, which will most likely be accurate. But cigarette manufacturers are perceived as easy prey not only in America. Among those who wish to push the factary and not bad to earn the governments of a number of countries more. They intend to dry Philip Morris, Reynolds and others, claiming that they are profitable on the smuggling of America of the Kansky cigarettes. There is even Colombia among foreign pursuers. And nothing that she is the center of the drug business - for the noble cause of Colombia will also fit ... Masha Lipman