The New Tobacco This Week Is ...

What's the new tobacco this week? Go on, I'll give you as many guesses as you like, you'll never get it.

Smokers and pro football players have something in common: They engage in risky behavior that can be potentially harmful to their health over time.

That's American football specifically, but who knows where it could spread from here?

The recent wave of lawsuits filed on behalf of retired players uses similar arguments to those made by attorneys representing smokers who sued tobacco companies more than 15 years ago — in this case, that the National Football League knew repeated concussions could lead to brain damage and yet hid the information.

More than 2,400 retired players are now plaintiffs, looking for the kind of success smokers had against the tobacco companies. The result then was a landmark, $206-billion settlement shared among 46 states. But the ex-players face a huge challenge as they take on a multibillion dollar industry that is the most popular sport in the United States.

Err, Big Football, do you mean? By crikey, popular has never been so derided, has it?

“The NFL took a page right out of the tobacco industry playbook and engaged in a campaign of fraud and deception, ignoring the risks of traumatic brain injuries in football and deliberately spreading false information to its players,” said Sol Weiss, co-lead counsel for the plaintiffs.

I don't know how many millions of supporters the NFL system has, but I suspect they won't be happy about their teams being starved of cash by ambulance chasers inspired by insane tobacco-hating lunatics like Stanton Glantz.

Never in the history of human existence have so few selfish, lucre-motivated obsessives harmed the gentle pleasures of so many decent people.

Next stop boxing, perhaps?

H/T NorCal David G