Last week a US court ordered a cigarette manufacturing company to pay damages of $23 billion (approx. £14 billion) to a woman following the death of her husband from cigarette related lung cancer. The rationale was that the company, aware that cigarette smoking was both addictive and life threatening, still persisted in selling its product to the unfortunate man.

Putting aside the incredible amount of damages awarded to the woman (no doubt her lawyers earned several million dollars too for their noble efforts) the question is why should any award be made? Cigarettes may well be addictive and harmful but even a child could work that out. Alcohol is also addictive and damaging to health. How long will it be before we read about multi-million dollar awards for deaths caused by pickled livers?

One of the greatest benefits of living in the West is that we have freedom of choice. In the main, we are free to choose whatever we want to do with our bodies and long may this continue. We also need to bear responsibility for our actions but somehow that word doesn’t seem to be so important these days.