Here is a battle for a semantics to revel in. As a smoker, I am fully aware that "light" cigarettes are the lesser of tar evils and no bounty of health. To argue that the term implies health is like saying lableing full tar cigarettes "heavy" would imply a lesser state of health. In our current lexicon "heavy" could describe the idea of fat, or that something weighs 200 lbs. While in the food industry "light" is meant to indicate lower calorie, that does not nescessarily imply it is healthy. "Light cookies" are no indicator of a healthy option! The cigarette lable is clear to me as a smoker and I wish lawyers would stop increasing the cost of my cigarettes with their frivolouos litigation. Unless the opinion of the majority of thousands of smokers is that "light" means healthy, they do not have any case to argue. I can assure you that we are under no misconception. We are not idiots as you would seem to imply.

An interesting perspective indeed. I'd agree that in the end light cigarettes are not healthier than regular or "heavy" cigarettes. But that entitlement was afforded them by the manufacturer not any attorney. It is a misnomer that implies a lower content of unhealthy attributes. In actuality a light cigarette compared to a regular cigarette has less toxic content. But that is not the point nor the grist of reality. The bottom line is that they are just drug delivery systems with different concentrations of the active ingredient.

The smoker is a nicotine addict and like all addicts requires a certain dosage to avoid withdrawals. Cigarette manufacturers have known this for decades and they engineer their products to ensure that nicotine addiction occurs. Making a cigarette lower in nicotine meant that they would sell more cigarettes to succor the same level of addiction as with regular cigarettes. They were selling a diluted product for the same price knowing that addicted users would need to purchase and use more volume for the same effect. In order to fill nicotine needs smokers of light cigarettes smoked more, faster and actually increased their exposure to the less toxic but still unhealthy substrates found in tobacco smoke. In the end smokers got all the bad of regular cigarettes plus the additional exposure given off by inhaling more smoke.

So it was tobacco manufacturers that duped the smokers by defining the notion that they now had delivered a safer product knowing full well the opposite was true. They had nicotine addiction down a a well understood science. The tobacco industry called you an idiot not the legal system. If you wish to vent any frustrations it should be directed at the tobacco industry and not those now in litigation against them.

sad to say, Scoot-r...but what you just said is I think the reason why the tobacco companies will win this case.

It would be a fraud if they had marketed the product as "light", without differing in any regard from the regular brands. Because the "lights" do differ, and contain less of certain substances, there is no fraudulant advertisement.

Which leaves the implication to health - which, like you say, is clearly there. So tobacco companies can't call their product light because it implies healthier - making it fall under the 'proximate application' rule of Cipollone v Liggett Group: "ask..whether, whatever the source of the duty, it imposes an obligation in this case because of the effect of smoking on health" and therefore be pre-emted.

point is, this is all because both the tobacco industry and the law makers called us idiots, took our money/votes and ran when the FCLAA was enacted. In return for the (imo useless) warnings on packages of cigarettes, the tobacco companies got de facto immunity from lawsuit related to advertisement . Outside of outright fraud, I think this SC will split in favor of pre-emption in cases like this.

The tobacco manufacturers duped us with the "light" implication and the legal system allowed it and sold it to us as tough legislation against big tobacco. And the smokers get kicked around again.

Everyone seems to have an agenda on this one, and as a smoker, I've got enough frustration to go around hehe.

Scoot'r-d, you just made the argument for those cigarette companies perfectly.

"The smoker is a nicotine addict and like all addicts requires a certain dosage to avoid withdrawals. Cigarette manufacturers have known this for decades and they engineer their products to ensure that nicotine addiction occurs. Making a cigarette lower in nicotine meant that they would sell more cigarettes to succor the same level of addiction as with regular cigarettes. They were selling a diluted product for the same price knowing that addicted users would need to purchase and use more volume for the same effect. In order to fill nicotine needs smokers of light cigarettes smoked more, faster and actually increased their exposure to the less toxic but still unhealthy substrates found in tobacco smoke. In the end smokers got all the bad of regular cigarettes plus the additional exposure given off by inhaling more smoke. "

You are conceding that the individual cigarette is technically healthier. Therefore, even though the likelihood of a customer smoking the same number of lights as normal are virtually zero, technically on an individual level the cigarette was healthier. Therefore it wasn't false advertising, it is not the job of the Tobacco company to make sure that customers follow through to make them safer, that is the customers job. This would be like me suing a car manufacturer because they said their car was safer, because it had new state of the art Seat Belts, but I sue them because I didn't wear the seat belt, therefore the car was not actually any safer. Its the same argument.

I actually believe that you do not understand the situation correctly though, because, even though I am against this case, I believe that , light cigarettes are just as deadly as the normal ones, even if you smoke the same amount.

patron002

As you can tell I am not a lawyer. I am however as honest and accurate as I can be (which underscores that I am not a lawyer). Yet, the premise for the lawsuit should not be the character of the individual cigarette but the character of the nicotine addiction. Manufacturers knew what nicotine addiction was about and understood how a light loaded cigarette would be used. That can be proven. Therefore they intentionally misrepresented their product as safe.

Their advertising was misleading by not advising prospective users that as an addictive product that they would need to increase their consumption of lower level cigarettes. By noting the product as safer and not discussing the need for dosage the implication was that regardless of the volume of product consumed that they were going to be better off and that was a lie.