Habit or Addiction? -- $4.5 million awarded to Lake Worth woman

A few weeks ago, a Palm Beach County jury awarded 87-year old Mary Tullo of Lake Worth, Florida $4.5 million in her lawsuit against four tobacco companies in the death of her husband Dominick Tullo, a lifelong smoker who was "addicted" to nicotine.

Read the rest of the story.

Good thing I wasn't on that Jury as I have never believed nicotine is an addiction (no matter what "experts" say). What is the addiction is the habit of reaching for that smoke-- at least that was the situation in my case having smoked a pack a day for 30 years. Deciding it was a stupid thing to do, stopped it cold. It was all mind over matter. I know, there are few who will agree with me and more who won't. Those with no will-power love to tell everyone that they are addicted and therefore can not quit, no siree bob.

According to Israel 21c, everyone has been assuming it's an addiction for years, but now compelling new research from Israel suggests that smokers find it hard to give up cigarettes because they are a habit, not an addiction.

In a new study, Dr. Reuven Dar, of Tel Aviv University, found that the intensity of cravings for cigarettes had more to do with the psychosocial element of smoking than with the physiological effects of nicotine as an addictive chemical.

Apparently, this jury did not consider that changing behavior and motivation might be the key. No one really forced her husband to smoke. He didn't want to address the habit that was the addiction -- change his behavior and deal with nicotine withdrawal symptoms if he even were to have any. He smoked because he liked to smoke. He died and his widow just won the jackpot. It's hard to believe that these types of cases still exist.

What we do know with certainty is that smoking harms every single organ of the body and is the direct cause of 443,000 deaths in the U.S., every year or one in five. Mrs. Tullo's husband died of lung cancer.

• Smoking causes lung cancer.
• Smoking causes lung diseases (e.g., emphysema, bronchitis, chronic airway obstruction) by damaging the airways and alveoli (i.e., small air sacs) of the lungs.

Was he living in a vacuum all those years while he smoked himself to death? Why did he not know that smoking can kill?