• The Korean Society of Law and Medicine
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.133-173
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• 2011

Since mid-1960s the reports from the Surgeon General, the World Health Organization, and other health experts state that there is no risk-free level exposure to smoking and secondhand smoke. Tobacco smoke is made up of more than 7,000 chemicals. Hundreds are toxic, and at least 70 are carcinogens. The chemicals in tobacco smoke reach smoker's lungs quickly every time smoker inhale causing damages immediately. Inhaling even the smallest amount of tobacco smoke can also damage smoker's DNA, which can lead to cancers. Smoking is responsible for more than 87% of lung cancers, but there are a host of other chronic diseases directly related to exposure to tobacco smoke. It's also a major cause of heart disease, stroke, aortic aneurysm, peripheral arterial disease and most of the other diseases. In the United States, each year with more than from 440,000 to 520,000 deaths caused by smoking and exposure to involuntary smoke. They conclude that smoking is the single most important source of preventable morbidity and mortality. The United States of America have about 60-year history of tobacco litigation. Tobacco litigation has been an important tool in tobacco control strategies aimed at limiting the activities of tobacco companies and providing redress to people who have become ill as a result of their use of tobacco products. Tobacco litigation is a kind of tort litigation. Quite often, as in the asbestos and other mass tort litigation episodes, tobacco litigation can play an educational role, warning the public about the magnitude of health risks that might otherwise be less clearly perceived. Tobacco litigation allows smokers, their families or other victims of smoking to sue tobacco companies in order to be compensated for the harm they have suffered. Potential benefits of tobacco litigation include compensation for smoking-related damages, strengthening regulatory activity, publicity, documents disclosure and changing tobacco industry behavior. And also tobacco litigation can limit the political activities of tobacco industry, protect human rights of smokers and non-smokers, increase burden to tobacco price-up and enhance the effects of law and politics in public health.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.23-34
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• 2016

South Korea's state health insurer, the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS), is in the process of a compensation suit against tobacco industry. The tobacco companies have habitually endeavored to ensure favorable outcomes in litigation by misusing scientific evidence or recruiting scientists to support its interests. This study analyzed strategies that tobacco companies have used during the NHIS litigation, which has been receiving world-wide attention. To understand the litigation strategies of tobacco companies, the present study reviewed the existing literature and carried out content analysis of petitions, preparatory documents, and supporting evidence submitted to the court by the NHIS and the tobacco companies during the suit. Tobacco companies misrepresented the World Health Organization (WHO) report's argument and misused scientific evidence, and removed the word "deadly" from the title of the citation. Tobacco companies submitted the research results of scientists who had worked as a consultant for the tobacco industry as evidence. Such litigation strategies employed by the tobacco companies internationally were applied similarly in Korean lawsuits. Results of tobacco litigation have a huge influence on tobacco control policies. For desirable outcomes of the suits, healthcare professionals need to pay a great deal of attention to the enormous volume of written opinions and supporting evidence that tobacco companies submit. They also need to face the fact that the companies engage in recruitment of scientists. Healthcare professionals should refuse to partner with tobacco industry, as recommended by Article 5.3 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Tobacco Science
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.55-61
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• 2010

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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• v.51 no.1
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• pp.1-5
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• 2018

Smokers keep smoking despite knowing that tobacco claims many lives, including their own and others'. What makes it hard for them to quit smoking nonetheless? Tobacco companies insist that smokers choose to smoke, according to their right to self-determination. Moreover, they insist that with motivation and willpower to quit smoking, smokers can easily stop smoking. Against this backdrop, this paper aims to discuss the addictive disease called tobacco use disorder, with an assessment of the addictiveness of tobacco and the reasons why smoking cessation is challenging, based on neuroscientific research. Nicotine that enters the body via smoking is rapidly transmitted to the central nervous system and causes various effects, including an arousal response. The changes in the nicotine receptors in the brain due to continuous smoking lead to addiction symptoms such as tolerance, craving, and withdrawal. Compared with other addictive substances, including alcohol and opioids, tobacco is more likely to cause dependence in smokers, and smokers are less likely to recover from their dependence. Moreover, the thinning of the cerebral cortex and the decrease in cognitive functions that occur with aging accelerate with smoking. Such changes occur in the structure and functions of the brain in proportion to the amount and period of smoking. In particular, abnormalities in the neural circuits that control cognition and decision-making cause loss of the ability to exert self-control and autonomy. This initiates nicotine dependence and the continuation of addictive behaviors. Therefore, smoking is considered to be a behavior that is repeated due to dependence on an addictive substance, nicotine, instead of one's choice by free will.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.229-262
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• 2015

Toxic tort cases have increased dramatically since the 1970s, as large technological systems, such as nuclear power plants and chemical factories, or mass-produced, high-tech products, had exposed citizens and consumers to dangerous substances. It was, however, difficult to establish causal connection between exposure and the alleged harms in many of the environmental, pollution, and product liability cases under the framework of tort law conception of causation and responsibility. Science and law was called upon to resolve such 'late modern' legal cases where true causes are hard to find, where no single explanatory factor is sufficient for explaining diseases like cancer. This article examines how plaintiffs in the Korean tobacco litigation mobilized such late modern tools in science and law, such as epidemiology and the allocation of the burden of proof, in the context of the global circulation of science and law. It further shows how a set of the scientific theories and legal arguments developed in order to cope with late modern risk played a central role in establishing a causation between smoking and cancer in 2011. This article suggests that STS scholars can fruitfully examine the interaction between science and law as a way to understand and engage with social and legal issues engendered by late modern risk.