Push for governments to sue tobacco companies and recover health costs of treating smokers

GOVERNMENTS should consider suing tobacco companies to recover the billions of dollars spent on caring for smokers, academics argue.

GOVERNMENTS should consider suing tobacco companies to recover the costs of caring for smokers, academics argue in a new opinion article.

They argue that following the lead of Canada, which launched a successful health care cost recovery lawsuit against big tobacco, governments could recover billions of dollars spent on treatment of diseases caused by smoking.

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Lead author, lecturer in health studies at Macquarie University Dr Ross MacKenzie believes tobacco companies should pay for the care of smoking victims. Picture: iStock

Lead author, lecturer in health studies at Macquarie University Dr Ross MacKenzie, wrote in the ­Medical Journal of Australia that legal action would also generate publicity that “denormalised” smoking and have a lasting effect on the tobacco industry.

“Successful litigation could reduce its financial capacity to engage in future activities and undermine any remaining credibility it may have in the policy arena,” he said.

While smoking rates have decreased in Australia, the authors say 2.4 million adults smoked in 2014 and it caused 15,000 deaths annually.

Dr MacKenzie said litigation had been raised ­previously by state and federal governments, but never progressed beyond discussions.

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