Yet these cases deal exclusively with retailers, not manufacturers. Daley's lawsuit, if successful, would create vast new precedents. Perhaps the next prey for local governments and trial lawyers will be automobile companies. After all, cities bear some health-care costs from car accidents and have to pay police to deal with the crashes. The city's lawsuit represents a dangerous combination of counting costs but not benefits in legal arguments and of using the courts to make public policy.
Every product has illegitimate uses.
Once legitimate products get assailed because they have a well-known downside, it's hard to see where the process stops. The evidence strongly indicates that it does.