Ontario moving ahead with Tobacco lawsuit. - $50 Billion -

I searched to see if this has come up lately, it's an old story with new information in the news.

The province of Ontario, Canada has decided to move forward with a lawsuit against tobacco companies citing that they cost the government 1.6 billion a year in health care costs, and that their marketing strategies did not outline risks to product users.

The Ontario government has been given the green light to move ahead with a $50-billion lawsuit against a group of major tobacco companies. Read more: www.canada.com...

Ontario launched the lawsuit against 14 tobacco companies in September 2009 to recoup past and present health-care costs related to smoking.

The lawsuit says that since 1955, tobacco companies have been liable for these costs because they knew about the addictiveness and associated health risks of cigarettes.

It also claims the companies misrepresented the risks, did not take steps to reduce them and marketed cigarettes towards children and teens.



Read more: www.canada.com...

This began in 2009 and has been in limbo since then. I think the government needs to back off. For one they were collecting tax money from the companies all this time (cigarettes are heavily taxed in Ontario) and the tobacco companies have altered their product packaging to meet government regulations.

From my understanding, the government is mad that the companies didn't outline the health concerns before they were forced to. This situation could lead in to a debate of whether everything should have a warning label, or whether or not we should even be allowed to consume certain products that are bad for us.

If they win, does that mean alcohol producing companies will have to outline the risks of their products, food producers with high fat content, etc and so on?

Smokes are already expensive enough.
And the government shouldn't be complaining its broke, its made that way.

Good old canada, where a pack of smokes is 12 bucks.

Every person who smokes knows it's unhealthy and addictive.
You can try to control the supply all you want, but it's not going to do a damn thing to demand.

Originally posted by AzureSky
Smokes are already expensive enough.
And the government shouldn't be complaining its broke, its made that way.

Good old canada, where a pack of smokes is 12 bucks.

If they lowered the taxes, perhaps people would stop smoking the grey market native cigarettes (where they collect none) and then their revenues might increase.

Right?

A substantial proportion of smokers in Ontario reported purchasing cigarettes on First Nations reserves. At least 14% of the reported cigarettes consumed by Ontario smokers between January 2005 and June 2006 were bought on reserves, leading to an estimated loss of $122.2 million in tax revenues.

Source.

And those are old figures! Before it was even popular.

reply to post by boncho


I know the prevailing thought (indoctrination) is that tobacco is unhealthy... But in 50 years of testing PURE organic stuff, not ONE study has shown a link to cancer.

This thread, www.abovetopsecret.com... , has some awesome information about the scapegoat tobacco is to cover for the cancers caused by Our nuclear weapons testing.