The announcement that court proceedings have started in Riyadh on an SR10-billion lawsuit by the Ministry of Health against Saudi agents of international tobacco companies for the costs of medical treatment will be greeted by the anti-smoking lobby with joy and the smoking lobby with horror.
Action against tobacco companies has been on the rise worldwide since 1994 when the US state of Mississippi launched what is now seen as a watershed case. Other US states followed suit, as have other countries, regional governments and private groups. Just last month, Moscow announced it is to sue one of the giants of the trade, British American Tobacco, for supplying inferior cigarettes to the Russian market, although this presupposes the notion that there are more dangerous and less dangerous cigarettes. There are not. All are potentially lethal.
The results of court action have, in fact, been mixed. If the tide is turning against smoking, it turns exceedingly slow. In the US, for example, the landmark Engle class action, first filed in 1994, is far from settled despite a court award in 2000 of $145 billion against the tobacco companies. The award was subsequently overturned and it could be years before plaintiffs finally see any money although it has not stopped a rush to the Miami courts by foreign governments and groups eager to join in the bonanza. In fact, most cases in the US where the tobacco companies have ended up paying were settled out of court (as was the Mississippi one). In the UK, too, the only case against a tobacco company to reach a final verdict took 12 years — and the tobacco company won. In Italy, again in the only case to finish, it was the plaintiff, a cancer victim’s widow, who won, but it took 14 years. The story is the same elsewhere. It is an extremely complex and, therefore, extremely lengthy process.
The Saudi case too has itself been bumping along for some time. The possibility of tobacco companies being sued for the costs of medical treatment first surfaced in 2000, then again the next year but went quiet until 2006 when it was announced that US and European tobacco companies would be pursued. Unfortunately — and it should have been foreseen at the time — the manufacturers took the simple precaution of refusing to turn up and face the charges. The authorities have been forced to change tack and go for their agents instead. But, assuming that the government wins at the end of what could be a very long day, who pays the SR10 billion? The agents almost certainly cannot afford to and the manufacturers are extremely unlikely to. What then? Could it result in a ban on American and European tobacco products? It could, but will other manufacturers be any more accommodating?
This is not a case about whether individual smokers should be compensated for cancer or heart disease resulting from cigarette smoking; if it were, there is a compelling argument that smokers know the risks and see the warnings but ignore them, that they have, therefore, brought their misfortunes on themselves. Rather, it is a case about who is responsible for the costs of treating them. Given that, there is a compelling argument that the tobacco companies, who make great profits from the business, should be held at least in part accountable. But the authorities cannot avoid responsibility either. If they believe — and they are right to do so — that smoking is potentially lethal, why not ban it altogether? That is the logic of this case. Certainly, cigarettes should not be available at the ludicrously cheap price of around less than five riyals a pack.
