Some background is essential.
The medical-scientific community has known, for at least fifty years, with a high degree of certainty, that tobacco smoking and chewing causes cancer of the lung and many other organs as well as a number of other diseases including coronary artery disease, which in combination, result in an enormous mortality and morbidity in our society. To be more specific, it is well documented that approximately 480,000 Americans die prematurely each year from the effects of personal tobacco use and environmental exposure to tobacco smoke from the tobacco of others. Millions of other persons suffer pain and disability from these tobacco-caused illnesses. Citizens in our society are generally well protected by a civil justice system that provides for payment of damages caused by consumer products found to be defective or dangerous in a court of law. Despite the widely disseminated information on the dangerous nature of cigarettes, the tobacco industry has been highly successful in avoiding regulatory legislation and adverse product liability judgments.