Sir, - I feel that James A. Gleeson (July 30th) is rather missing the point. Tobacco companies are no more committing euthanasia than the governments that support them. What they are doing (and I, for one, cannot blame them) is capitalising on the idiocy of people who, after years of being told of the dangers of nicotine addiction, persist in their habit.
One does not propose the closure of all public houses in response to a rise in alcoholism among the young, so why should tobacco companies be hounded? I simply do not believe that anyone could labour under the delusion that smoking is a healthy pastime and, consequently, if they cannot pull themselves together for a sufficient length of time to stop and break the habit, they have no business to whinge when they begin to suffer from smoking-related ailments.
Sadly, I fear that people are generally too keen to abdicate from their responsibility to look after themselves to use any form of common sense on this issue. The "let's blame someone else and then we can sue them" mentality is a hideous sight, but one which appears to be ever on the increase. - Yours, etc.,
Vicky Lowsley, Shelbourne Village, Dublin 4.