Mass torts litigation arguments have followed the example set by the tobacco litigation because the ways companies misled consumers are the same or similar (and often promulgated by the same PR firms and scientific consultants). It's worth paying attention to mass torts as a key part of the reform ecosystem.
> When New York City banned smoking in nearly all bars and restaurants while raising cigarette taxes in 2002, it was seen as radical policy change — the public health equivalent of Zohran Mamdani’s government-run grocery stores. [...] But despite short-term complaining, indoor smoking bans prompted little if any electoral backlash. Once New York City acted, the bans spread like wildfire, taking over most states.
California banned smoking in bars and restaurants on Jan 1st 1998, a full 4 years before NYC. I don't know whether it had as much effect nationwide as the NYC ban, but it should be recognized as being in place WAY before the NYC ban. San Francisco became a lot nicer place to go out for a drink in 1998.
The first two heroes of the movement to recognize a connection between smoking and lung cancer were British physicians Richard Doll and Bradford Hill. They fought big tobacco in the 1950s with studies that jump-started clinical science as a valid empirical science. Their campaign led to the FDA requirement that cigarette packaging warn of of the connection. The Hill criteria for accepting correlation as a causal component when a threat to human life is great enough to require government action, has become a cornerstone of medical research. Public ignorance of the nature of science and the difference between its causal and empirical regimes is one contributor to antiscience.
> the climate movement has taken direct inspiration from the anti-smoking movement, accusing the fossil fuel industry of using “big tobacco tactics” to cover up the harms of climate change [...] but you can’t just wish these technological problems away and act like “big oil” tricked us into thinking that an airplane is a good way to travel
What the heck? The point of books like "Merchants of Doubt" is that climate-science dismissives mislead people about global warming the same way the tobacco lobby misled people about lung cancer. No doubt some partisan fool somewhere says big oil tricked us into thinking that an airplane is a good way to travel; partisans say all kinds of nonsense. ExxonMobil is the prime example of a company whose scientists were like "yup, we're causing global warming" internally, but lied and lobbied very loudly and publicly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExxonMobil_climate_change_denial
It seems to me that Matt is suggesting that the most effective approach the anti-tobacco movement had was that smoking was annoying to non-smokers who were to limit smoking to progressively fewer and fewer public spaces.
Wertheimer’s post doesn’t address this - its focus is on the tort liability means of pushing external costs onto the producers.
But regarding smoking, wasn’t that approach somewhat stymied by the difficulty of determining that the harm directly resulted from smoking? Wouldn’t proving the effect of social media in a particular case be even more challenging?
On the other hand, is social media use annoying enough to warrant regulating it out of public spaces? I think the parallel breaks down somewhat. I don’t see a majority of non-social media users being annoyed by other people doomscrolling.
It seems like it’ll take a dramatic cultural shift, where the choice to ignore the world around you to stare at a drip of images on your phone is viewed as bad, both for you and for the others around you, to make the same sort of headway as anti-smoking had.
It's not just smoking. I wonder how many of the SB community under the age of, say, 45 know that mandatory seat belt usage was once a big honking controversy. And yet here we are and we don't even have the wacko libertarian/MAGA types railing against the nanny state mandate on seat belt use.
It wasn't always that way. Just like with the anti-smoking crusade, it took a lot of science (getting thrown around like a rag doll is apparently dangerous, scientists discovered), a public education campaign, lots of litigation, increasing levels of federal and state legislation and -- my big surprise -- auto company lobbying *in favor* of the mandates. I fondly recall some of the weirder steps along the way, such as the automatic seatbelts that gave you no choice to be belted once you sat down (is that still a thing?) And I remember the old attitudes, like in 1970 when I got my driver's license and proudly told a policeman I always used a seatbelt and his look of disdain and expression of "do I give a you know what?" has remained with me always.
Since seatbelts are required equipment that save lives more effectively and/or cheaply than all the other measures, if I were a car company I'd have supported seatbelt mandates and oppose the more expensive measures like $1000 airbags (well, probably the price has come down by now).
When I was in driving school, they actually addressed an apparently common refrain from people who don't want to wear seatbelts, which was "Wouldn't I rather be thrown from the vehicle if I'm in a collision?" Yeah, being hurled through a windshield at 70 mph is going to be way better for you. Motivated reasoning is a hell of a drug.
Matt is correct that Michael Mann's first movie "Thief" is a great film! It does tend to get overshadowed by Mann's other big hits like "Heat" and "The Insider". James Caan is amazing in it. It also has an kick ass soundtrack by Tangerine Dream.
My favorite bit of "Thief" trivia is that former cop and cast member Dennis Farina had once arrested former thief and cast member John Santucci. They were both also in "Crime Story", which was one of my favorite TV shows.
Yes in France eg, not known for their libertarian views. It’s pretty shocking to see kids outside their schools smoking during lunch. But it has less of an overall public health impact than I would have expected.
Doesn't smoking generally lead to down stream health issues? Later life, in particular.
Though, I suppose I also would expect more asthma and such. Seems that is also not the case. Would be wild for this to be similar to helmet use on bicycles.
I've seen it claimed that in systems with socialized health care there's a tension between increased short-run costs from smoking-related illness and long-run savings from smokers dying faster and thus needing less end-of-life care, but I have no hard data on that.
Yes it leads to very bad health issues, not only famously lung cancer but also heart attack and stroke. But despite much higher rates of smoking in France - up to a third of the population - the overall life expectancy is later.
Mass torts litigation arguments have followed the example set by the tobacco litigation because the ways companies misled consumers are the same or similar (and often promulgated by the same PR firms and scientific consultants). It's worth paying attention to mass torts as a key part of the reform ecosystem.
> When New York City banned smoking in nearly all bars and restaurants while raising cigarette taxes in 2002, it was seen as radical policy change — the public health equivalent of Zohran Mamdani’s government-run grocery stores. [...] But despite short-term complaining, indoor smoking bans prompted little if any electoral backlash. Once New York City acted, the bans spread like wildfire, taking over most states.
California banned smoking in bars and restaurants on Jan 1st 1998, a full 4 years before NYC. I don't know whether it had as much effect nationwide as the NYC ban, but it should be recognized as being in place WAY before the NYC ban. San Francisco became a lot nicer place to go out for a drink in 1998.
The first two heroes of the movement to recognize a connection between smoking and lung cancer were British physicians Richard Doll and Bradford Hill. They fought big tobacco in the 1950s with studies that jump-started clinical science as a valid empirical science. Their campaign led to the FDA requirement that cigarette packaging warn of of the connection. The Hill criteria for accepting correlation as a causal component when a threat to human life is great enough to require government action, has become a cornerstone of medical research. Public ignorance of the nature of science and the difference between its causal and empirical regimes is one contributor to antiscience.
> the climate movement has taken direct inspiration from the anti-smoking movement, accusing the fossil fuel industry of using “big tobacco tactics” to cover up the harms of climate change [...] but you can’t just wish these technological problems away and act like “big oil” tricked us into thinking that an airplane is a good way to travel
What the heck? The point of books like "Merchants of Doubt" is that climate-science dismissives mislead people about global warming the same way the tobacco lobby misled people about lung cancer. No doubt some partisan fool somewhere says big oil tricked us into thinking that an airplane is a good way to travel; partisans say all kinds of nonsense. ExxonMobil is the prime example of a company whose scientists were like "yup, we're causing global warming" internally, but lied and lobbied very loudly and publicly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExxonMobil_climate_change_denial
Anyone got on hot takes on Snus? EVERY SWEDISH PERSON DOES IT!
Love this piece. Great reminder about what can be done, and how to go about it.
Wasn’t secondhand smoke mostly bs?
It seems to me that Matt is suggesting that the most effective approach the anti-tobacco movement had was that smoking was annoying to non-smokers who were to limit smoking to progressively fewer and fewer public spaces.
Wertheimer’s post doesn’t address this - its focus is on the tort liability means of pushing external costs onto the producers.
But regarding smoking, wasn’t that approach somewhat stymied by the difficulty of determining that the harm directly resulted from smoking? Wouldn’t proving the effect of social media in a particular case be even more challenging?
On the other hand, is social media use annoying enough to warrant regulating it out of public spaces? I think the parallel breaks down somewhat. I don’t see a majority of non-social media users being annoyed by other people doomscrolling.
It seems like it’ll take a dramatic cultural shift, where the choice to ignore the world around you to stare at a drip of images on your phone is viewed as bad, both for you and for the others around you, to make the same sort of headway as anti-smoking had.
This article kept making me think of homelessness: it’s very bad for the homeless and it’s somewhat annoying to everyone else.
Never got those Camel ads. Is the guy with the mustache supposed to be an archeologist or something?
He's a glamourous, if stinky, world traveler!
Russell Crowe should have won Best Actor for “Inside Man.”
Liked on the theory that you mean "The Insider." If you did, in fact, mean "Inside Man," then strong disagree.
It's not just smoking. I wonder how many of the SB community under the age of, say, 45 know that mandatory seat belt usage was once a big honking controversy. And yet here we are and we don't even have the wacko libertarian/MAGA types railing against the nanny state mandate on seat belt use.
It wasn't always that way. Just like with the anti-smoking crusade, it took a lot of science (getting thrown around like a rag doll is apparently dangerous, scientists discovered), a public education campaign, lots of litigation, increasing levels of federal and state legislation and -- my big surprise -- auto company lobbying *in favor* of the mandates. I fondly recall some of the weirder steps along the way, such as the automatic seatbelts that gave you no choice to be belted once you sat down (is that still a thing?) And I remember the old attitudes, like in 1970 when I got my driver's license and proudly told a policeman I always used a seatbelt and his look of disdain and expression of "do I give a you know what?" has remained with me always.
Nice little piece here: https://www.the-rheumatologist.org/article/revisionist-history-seat-belts-resistance-to-public-health-measures/ . Apparently, the auto companies led the charge for states to pass mandatory seatbelt laws in order to avoid a federal mandate to install passive systems, like airbags. Which we eventually got anyway. So now we have belts *and* suspenders.
Since seatbelts are required equipment that save lives more effectively and/or cheaply than all the other measures, if I were a car company I'd have supported seatbelt mandates and oppose the more expensive measures like $1000 airbags (well, probably the price has come down by now).
When I was in driving school, they actually addressed an apparently common refrain from people who don't want to wear seatbelts, which was "Wouldn't I rather be thrown from the vehicle if I'm in a collision?" Yeah, being hurled through a windshield at 70 mph is going to be way better for you. Motivated reasoning is a hell of a drug.
Matt is correct that Michael Mann's first movie "Thief" is a great film! It does tend to get overshadowed by Mann's other big hits like "Heat" and "The Insider". James Caan is amazing in it. It also has an kick ass soundtrack by Tangerine Dream.
My favorite bit of "Thief" trivia is that former cop and cast member Dennis Farina had once arrested former thief and cast member John Santucci. They were both also in "Crime Story", which was one of my favorite TV shows.
And Santucci plays a corrupt cop as I recall. Amazing that that film doesn't get more recognition. Chris Nolan said it was a big influence on him.
great read.
made me feel old as f*** though - vividly remembering these times like they were yesterday (weren't they?!)
'and act like “big oil” tricked us into thinking that an airplane is a good way to travel long distances.'
...and now I'm wiping coffee off my counter.
I confess it surprises me every time I see how big smoking still is in places. Particularly other countries.
Yes in France eg, not known for their libertarian views. It’s pretty shocking to see kids outside their schools smoking during lunch. But it has less of an overall public health impact than I would have expected.
Doesn't smoking generally lead to down stream health issues? Later life, in particular.
Though, I suppose I also would expect more asthma and such. Seems that is also not the case. Would be wild for this to be similar to helmet use on bicycles.
I've seen it claimed that in systems with socialized health care there's a tension between increased short-run costs from smoking-related illness and long-run savings from smokers dying faster and thus needing less end-of-life care, but I have no hard data on that.
Yes it leads to very bad health issues, not only famously lung cancer but also heart attack and stroke. But despite much higher rates of smoking in France - up to a third of the population - the overall life expectancy is later.
smoking also helps with weight management I believe. So that probably counteracts some of it.