Tobacco and the law: the state of the art

Litigation has become a major weapon in the conflict between those who seek to control tobacco and the tobacco industry. Apart from the cases arising from the high proportion of fires caused by cigarettes (including, in the UK, the disastrous fire at the Bradford football stadium and the fire at Kings Cross railway station, both of which were caused by discarded cigarette butts), in the last few years there have been and are continuing major lawsuits against the tobacco manufacturers both in the USA and in the UK. In Australia, a Court has ruled that the tobacco industry's claims that passive smoke had not been proven to cause a variety of diseases were false and misleading. A Quebec judge ruled as unconstitutional a Canadian law which had banned tobacco advertising. A product liability suit was filed against cigarette manufacturers by airline flight attendants whose health, they alleged, was impaired by exposure to passive smoke. To date, attempts to win damages from the manufacturers for injuries caused by smoking have failed, but several group actions are pending in the courts in England and the USA. The cases to date demonstrate the range and importance of tobacco control issues now being considered by the Courts.