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Don't put your head in the microwave

Yesterday, Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds were ordered to pay a total of twenty million dollars to a woman, Leslie Whiteley, who is dying as a direct result of smoking for 27 years. This is idiocy. Anyone who begins smoking now, or began after warning labels were placed on cigarettes, doesn't deserve a red cent from big tobacco.

Today, everything comes with a warning. Microwaves come with a warning. It's a big sticker, right on the front, that reads: "Do not place head in microwave while microwave is in operation." That is, a microwave does not double as a hairdryer. For most people, this is a relatively simple set of instructions. Apparently, however, not everyone is this smart. Obviously, this label is the result of someone sticking their head in the microwave, turning it on, then getting injured and suing the corporation that manufactured the microwave. It's easy to say that this person probably deserved what they got. Anyone who puts their head inside of a microwave probably doesn't have enough of a brain to really worry about brain damage. But in our consumer-oriented society, we try to protect the stupid with warning labels. That's why shampoo comes with such explicit directions; without them, people would be drinking their Head & Shoulders to keep away the flakes. Once these labels are applied, though, the company loses their liability in the matter. That's the point of the labels.

Someone like Whiteley, who began smoking after the Surgeon General began forcing cigarette packs to carry warning labels, has no claim on the companies. She cannot legitimately say that she didn't know about the dangers of smoking: every single pack she smoked told her that the cigarettes within would potentially kill her. If she still smoked, she was doing it of her own accord, and at her own risk.

Verdicts like this don't reflect the facts of the case so much as the hatred of juries, and the average American, towards big tobacco. In the eyes of most, companies like RJR Nabisco and Philip Morris are the most despicable entities on the face of the planet. They scheme to get small children and puppies addicted to their evil cancer-sticks and then laugh about the horrible, wasting fate of their victims. They are evil, evil like that smoking guy on X-Files. They rank up there with politicians, used-car salesmen, and even, on a bad day, journalists.

Don't misunderstand. Big tobacco is bad. All the commercials about Miller beer, which is owned by a tobacco company, helping flood victims by bottling water instead of beer won't change that. No commercial about the tobacco companies getting peaches to an old homebound woman will free them from responsibility for their evils. Big tobacco is bad; but it isn't malevolent. It is a business, like any other, and one that did all that it could to increase profits. Because of their pursuit of money, they did any number of things that are morally reprehensible, deceiving people about the dangers of smoking for years. Anyone who was so deceived has a legitimate claim against the tobacco companies. They can argue that they didn't know smoking was a smelly, puking, teeth-staining whatever. They can argue that the Camel commercials claiming that three out of four doctors smoke Camels led them to believe that it was a healthy habit.

However, those that have always known about the dangers have no one to blame for their illness but themselves. Many college students get themselves into academic problems, but they don't have a claim against Mr. Jack Daniels because of it. If you know what you're doing, it is absurd to blame someone else for the consequences of your own actions. It's a sad sign when juries will agree to such arguments.

We should feel sorry for Ms. Whiteley. She has killed herself in one of the slower and more painful ways imaginable. But she did it of her own accord, and it is wrong for us to hold someone else responsible for her stupidity.