This is an attempt to argue why the tobacco industry should be prosecuted

The makers of the cigarette know that their product is unhealthy and know that they consciously make it as addictive as possible. This fact alone should already be enough to sue the entire industry. And yet it doesn't happen (a lot). This is partly because cigarettes, on the basis of regulations, may be sold worldwide. So it's really not so evident that this case falls under criminal law. However, prosecution could be promising, based on the following arguments.

The first is that holes are stuck in the filter of a cigarette, just where a smoker is holding his fingers. If the ISO machines (International Organization for Standardization) test a cigarette for harmful substances, those holes remain open, but if a smoker puts his fingers on it, they aren't. As a result, you have an improperly measured product on the market that contains much higher values of bad substances than the legislator intended to allow. To me, this example closely resembles the Volkswagen emissions scandal, also known as Dieselgate or Emissionsgate. That sector was heavily fined.

The second argument is that addictive substances are added to a cigarette, setting aside the free will. It is often said that smoking is a choice. It's a right and it's nobody's business: you know it is addictive and yet you light up a cigarette. That could be an obstacle to persecution, but there are many arguments against it. Namely, the concept of choice when it comes to nicotine addiction is completely false.

The Tobacco Industry documents

I am an ex-smoker myself. And even though I no longer smoke, I still feel addicted. All the while I thought there was nicotine, tar and carbon monoxide in a cigarette. But there is a lot more in it. There are flavors in a cigarette. Sugars are added, and burnt sugar acts as a kind of antidepressant. Means are added that suppress the cough stimulus. This was necessary because a body protects itself against inhaling smoke by coughing, getting sick or vomiting. Yes, indeed, smoke is pure poison.

The tobacco industry has added all kinds of additives to a cigarette to make the smoke inhalable. If that had not been the case, there would have been no smokers at all. You could therefore say that the tobacco producer is doing everything it can to get 'smoke' into the body. To let nicotine access the brain. And once that happens, a change of the brain occurs, causing the addiction. That whole interplay of manipulations, of the ingredients of the cigarette, of the marketing of the product, of the normalization of the cigarette, is so unbelievably criminal.

And yes, people know that it is addictive and harmful. But eighty to ninety percent of all addicted smokers started when they were around fourteen years old. You must be eighteen or older in most countries to buy cigarettes, but nothing is so easy to get. They are for sale on every corner of the street, in every supermarket and in almost every store. The adolescent brain is not concerned at all with the health effects that occur when you are thirty or forty, but with the here and now. By trying out things that are not allowed. And precisely because almost all addicts started at a young age, at an age where you think you can escape the consequences, I believe that the concept of choice is completely false.

From the first weeks that you smoke, there is no longer any question of free will. You are not weak, you are addicted. Your brain is addicted. Free will has been repressed, is completely gone. Isn't it absurd to know that the tobacco industry is discussing how to make the cigarette as addictive as possible? How do we know all this? The Tobacco Industry documents can be viewed on the internet. How can you speak of free will if at the same time everything is done to eliminate that free will?

I can only advise everyone to go into the documents extensively. The tobacco industry is so criminal…

A) THE TOBACCO INDUSTRY DOCUMENTS: a practical manual
B) Search the collection of internal corporate documents

In 1998, six million once secret documents from seven cigarette manufacturers doing business in the US became available to the public as a result of legal action. There were documents from 7 cigarette manufacturers and two affi liated organizations: Philip Morris Incorporated, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation, British American Tobacco Industries, Lorillard Tobacco Company, the American Tobacco Company, the Liggett Group, the Tobacco Institute and the Council for Tobacco Research. The documents that include letters, fax, memos, etc written by company scientist, consultants, lawyers, top executives, other employees and outside organizations amounted to over 35 million pages.

The information provided in these documents, as well as the reports that have been prepared describing their content, provide a wealth of information about some of the plans and processes of the tobacco companies in their attempt to delay or obstruct tobacco control measures and policies.

Freedom is the trademark of the tobacco industry

The tobacco industry repeatedly cite the concept of freedom. The Marlboro man on his horse, high on a mountain, radiated freedom. Three Marlboro men have since died from lung cancer. Take a look at films or Netflix series: why do so many main characters smoke? It's all about smart product placement by the tobacco industry. For decades, the tobacco industry has wanted us to believe that we are free when we smoke. But freedom is a very relative concept. How free are you if you want to quit smoking and your body won't let you? I have never met a smoker who wants to be addicted. Isn't it crazy to then speak of freedom?

Young people must be protected

The human brain is unable to consider long-term health effects of smoking. No dog on earth would start smoking if you knew you would die three weeks later. It is different when we talk about long-term health risks. For example, if you know you'll die from smoking, but only in ten, fifteen or twenty years, the brain will response as if we talk about someone else. This is proven is some MRI studies. And the tobacco industry knows that damn well.

Not entirely illogical in itself. Normal functioning would become impossible if we had to take into account all the dangers that might come our way in the future. You can see the same mechanism with climate change: our planet is dying and nothing that scientists say causes sceptics any undue concern... The tobacco industry has 'the luck' that the brain works that way. But on the basis of this you can also argue that smoking is not a considered choice...

Share this for all smokers. And definitely go into those tobacco industry documents! It's worse than you think...

Photo 1 by Irina Iriser on Unsplash
Photo 2 by Luc van Loon on Unsplash
Photo 3 by Mikail Duran on Unsplash