Yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling allowing provinces to sue tobacco companies for the damage they’ve done is just one more nail in the coffin of the tobacco industry. The developing world may be the promised land for nicotine pushers, but here in North America, it’s just a matter of time.
I can only imagine what it’s like for Big Tobacco executives. Knowing your days are numbered; seeing every week you’re able to stave off the inevitable as another small victory; feeling the cold darkness closing in on the margins of your existence as the end inexorably approaches…
Which, of course, is exactly the same kind of existence they’ve managed to secure for many of their customers.
* * *
On that note, here’s a request for media outlets. Every article I saw about the court decision was illustrated with a picture of someone smoking. But that’s not what the case is ultimately about; it’s about corporate profits, lung cancer, emphysema, heart disease and stroke. It’s about the pain and suffering inflicted on individuals and their families, the toll that takes on our health care system and our economy, and who should take the responsibility.
Illustrating that with yet another photo of someone blowing smoke has been, if you’ll pardon the expression, done to death — and it misses the guts of the story. Next time, send your photographers to a cancer ward… or a graveyard.
