Vicious Rants of an Angry Yellow Man

I am glad that the Illinois Supreme Court has overturned a $10.1 billion verdict against Philip Morris over claims that the company deceptively marketed "light" cigarettes. I am against smoking and I know the tobacco companies are bad guys but this lawsuit is ridiculous. There are 1.14 million smokers who signed up for this class action suit. These people are morons. You can't figure out that light cigarettes are also dangerous? Who on this earth doesn't know that smoking any type of cigarettes can kill you? For those who signed on because of greed, you should know that 3 billion dollars of the award would have gone to the state. Dividing the 7.1 billion leaves each plaintiff less than $7000 before attorney fees. So for a few thousand bucks you are selling out your dignity as a human being who would take personal responsibility for your action.

Sure the tobacco companies are tricky but they followed federal guidelines and their marketing practice in this case was approved by the Federal Trade Commission. If smoked the same amount these light cigarettes are less toxic than regular cigarettes. The claim by the plaintiff is that to get more nicotine, smoker then smoked more cigarettes or inhaled more deeply and thus nullify the effect of the light cigarettes. This is an absurd argument. I use the lower sodium soy sauce at my favorite Japanese restaurant. If I use twice as much becasue it is not salty enough, I can't blame the soy sauce maker of false advertising when I get hypertension. If you think that you can smoke twice as much light cigarette as the regular ones you must be a moron.

Another moron is the judge who ruled against Philip Morris in the original trial. I can see stupid, sympathetic juries giving outrage verdicts, but this is a judge. If he thinks this case is fraud, then I should sue beer companies in his court for showing that drinking beer makes men look cool in front of women. I am sure I can find a few million men who would testified that this is false advertising!

The tobacco companies have done some despicable things in the past but the dangers of their products are well known today. If an adult makes a decision to smoke any tobacco product in the past 30 years, he has to take responsibility for his own action. The attorney for the plaintiffs in this case said that the Supreme Court decision will cause consumers to suffer. I am a consumer, and I am not suffering since I don't smoke. For those who swithched from regular to light cigarettes because they believed the advertising, they would be killing themselves anyway whether they switched or not. This is not a case of fraud but an example of greed and lack of personal responsibility in our society.