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Comment by lp0_on_fire | Hacker News Reader

I'd argue the drastic reduction of smoking is the result of a culture shift around the activity (better education) and governments banning it from public spaces, not lawyers suing Philip Morris.

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Educational programs aren’t free, though. The tobacco industry was forced to spend billions paying for these programs as part of the master settlement in 1998. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_Master_Settlement_Ag...

I think it's pretty hard to say that that cultural shift happened in isolation from the reduction in commercial advertising of tobacco products (due to legal bans in the 70s and 80s) and the associated increase in advertising of their negative effects (often paid for by lawsuit settlement money).

Those companies spent billions to shape the cultural perception of smoking through direct advertisement and popular media.

The "better education" part is directly funded from tobacco lawsuits.

I'd posit that legal actions provide lubricant for shifts in social consensus. We could probably argue chickens and eggs for awhile though.

Yeah, given shifts in social consensus also provide lubricants for lawsuits (and laws). One would have to study the issue harder than I have--and I'm sure people have and probably written books. But certainly there was a massive shift in most places that probably isn't explained by either legal actions or higher taxes.

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