Pick Your Poison

HOW much legal trouble are the tobacco companies in? They’re being sued by-—an asbestos company. Yes, by a target of the last round of product-liability hysteria. Raymark Industries, Inc., argues that some of the plaintiffs to whom it paid $400 million were actually suffering from smoking, not from exposure to asbestos. The plaintiffs’ bar taketh, and the plaintiffs’ bar giveth back.

Perfect justice should not have been expected of the campaign against smoking—a campaign that aims to rescue addicts by forcing them to pay more for their enslavement, and to punish an industry for lies that deceived no one. In a just world, the anti-tobacco campaign would collapse of its own hypocrisies.

About the Author

Ramesh Ponnuru

Ramesh Ponnuru is the editor of National Review, a columnist for the Washington Post, and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

HOW much legal trouble are the tobacco companies in? They’re being sued by-—an asbestos company. Yes, by a target of the last round of product-liability hysteria. Raymark Industries, Inc., argues that some of the plaintiffs to whom it paid $400 million were actually suffering from smoking, not from exposure to asbestos. The plaintiffs’ bar taketh, and the plaintiffs’ bar giveth back.

Perfect justice should not have been expected of the campaign against smoking—a campaign that aims to rescue addicts by forcing them to pay more for their enslavement, and to punish an industry for lies that deceived no one. In a just world, the anti-tobacco campaign would collapse of its own hypocrisies.