Do property rights trump the health, wellbeing and lives of millions of people? Around 100,000 Britons die of smoking-related illnesses every year: from cancer to heart disease. Worldwide, the figure is a startling 6 million annually...[T]here’s rightly consensus that we should discourage people from taking up the habit, and inform consumers of the dire health implications. One such measure is the introduction of plain cigarette packaging...But now the tobacco companies are fighting back, suing the government for up to £11bn on the basis that it would constitute “deprivation of a highly valuable intellectual property”. This is an absurd example of how the law values property over people. Our government is democratically elected. Yes, that rightly means there have to be checks and balances, and policies must abide by the existing framework of the law. But if the law enables tobacco companies to extort £11bn from the government...then the law is wrong. If the law does not value people’s lives and wellbeing over the rights of tobacco companies to make profit from cancer sticks, then the law is morally bankrupt....This legal action should be treated as a test. Do we allow major corporations...to have more rights in law than people’s lives?