Argument On The Tobacco Advertising

Tobacco is the number one cause of preventable death in the United States. According to the American Lung Association in 2009, 20.6% of adults were current smokers. In 1970, the United States banned television and radio advertisements of cigarettes. Across the world countries battle similar issues in how to help prevent deaths, lower healthcare costs, and educate the population. Countries have banned advertising, posted health causes, renamed brands, and even included informational fliers in packs of cigarettes. In 2001, The Government of India decided to ban the advertising of cigarettes. This ban was created to help the youth of India and hoped to reduce the amount of future smokers. The proposal of this restriction caused debates between the government, advertising companies, and tobacco manufacturers. The supporting and dismantling arguments for these ethical and commercial causes of the ban have enabled the government to make their final decision.

Smokers have almost twice the risk of having coronary heart disease as nonsmokers. Smokers' risk of getting lung cancer is approximately 14 times than that of nonsmokers. It has taken many years for tobacco products deadly effects to be scientifically documented. Tobacco companies spend approximately $14 million a day on advertising. Students who own cigarette promotional items are more than four times more likely to begin smoking, compared to those who do not own these items. Eighty-six percent of people between 12 and 17-years old who smoke prefer the three most heavily advertised brands. Only about one-third of adult smokers choose these brands. Almost ninety percent of adult smokers began at or before age 18. A recent study showed that thirty-four percent of teens began smoking as a result of the tobacco company's promotional activities. Tobacco companies loose 3,000-5,000 customers each day, more than 1,000 die from using tobacco as intended, the rest die of other causes. The tobacco industry targets 1.63 million new smokers a year to compensate for those that quit or die. The average age of new smokers in the United States right now is 12. Since the 1980s, big tobacco companies have supported a number of efforts to reduce youth access to cigarettes at retail. Thirty percent of teens that smoke say that they were able to obtain cigarettes from retail stores. Thirty-two percent of kids who smoke say they borrow

I believe that tobacco companies should be strictly prohibited from advertising publicly using the media and magazines, because in my opinion it is unethical to sell something that marketers clearly are aware that tobacco gives many diseases and is deadly. According to the article, “Smoking & Tobacco Use,” “Cigarette smoking causes about one of every five deaths in the United States each year.” Many smokers every year die from diseases related to lung cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and respiratory diseases. With that being said, it is clear that tobacco companies don’t necessarily think of the ethical perspective, and only focus on the investment profit. The majority of investors only worry about making profits and suiting their needs, rather

This Law impacted the industry badly as the sales have been dropping. The Tobacco industry does not like the law because it impacts their business and there if tobacco is not being advertised then fewer people will know about it and they can’t get people's attention to it so not many people buy it.

not only within the United States, but also around the world, and tobacco companies continue to

Fortunately, the tobacco industry's behavior is likely to change due to the increasing legal and societal pressures. Much legislation has been imposed to tobacco firms based on codes of behavior, different government strategies and litigations, especially after 1980 where anti-smoking groups reactions, led to higher restrictions throughout

Reynolds’s Joe Camel advertising campaign, which debuted in 1988. Joe Camel was a cool, sunglasssporting, leather-jacket-wearing cartoon character featured on billboards and in magazine ads. According to one 1991 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Joe Camel was as easily recognized by six-year-olds as Mickey Mouse. It was not long before this highly recognizable figure began to attract young smokers. By 1995, 13.3 percent of teen smokers smoked Camel cigarettes, a fact that led antismoking groups to accuse R.J. Reynolds of marketing tobacco specifically to minors.

The arguments in favor of the ban on tobacco related advertising in India are plentiful. First, proponents of the ban assert that the state has the right to intervene in the name of public health. Second, there are other precedents for dangerous or potentially dangerous products’ advertising being restricted such as firearms or pharmaceuticals. Third, tobacco related deaths are projected to increase over the next few years and we need to take action to stem the flow of new users. Fourth, youth targeted advertising campaigns are wrong and the tobacco industry’s own released documents indicate that the 14-24 year old demographic is targeted as “tomorrow’s cigarette business”, these campaigns need to stop to reduce the number of young people getting addicted to cigarettes. Fifth, policies aimed at reducing tobacco use are forecast to increase employment despite the tobacco industry itself contracting due to the fact that the money spent on tobacco products does not leave the economy if not spent on those products but actually is used on more complex products. Finally, complete bans on tobacco marketing result in reduced use of tobacco products over time according to studies in Norway, Finland, New Zealand and France, but the ban needs to cover all media outlets.

On February 6, 2001, India signed into law, a restriction that prevents tobacco manufacturers from advertising the sale of tobacco. According to a report found on the website icmrindia.org, it was described as a “bombshell” in India.

Taking a closer look at those in favor of the tobacco advertising bans there are several factors to be considered. The Government of India wasn’t the first country to deliberate over such a decision, but rather was following in the footsteps of countries like France, Finland, and Norway all of whom had already chosen to enact advertising bans on tobacco. One of the first arguments to be made in favor of the advertising bans was that the government had the right to step in and protect the overall health of its citizens “citing examples like cocaine, a drug banned the world over”. In 1981 in Belgium then 1991 in France court rulings were made declaring that bans on tobacco advertising were in fact not unconstitutional, “as it was based on the need to protect public health, and did not curtail the freedom of trade”. Questions were then brought up regarding what

There has always been controversy around the subject of tobacco, and in particular cigarette, advertising. It has been much debated over the years, but lately there has been a surge in media on the discussion on restriction and even prohibition of tobacco advertising. The American legislation has banned commercials for cigarettes on TV and the topic has been highly debated within the European Union for many years now. Further, many American action groups, the Surgeon General together with the American Medical Association have stated their support for a complete ban of all advertising for these kinds of products.

In February 6, 2001, the Government of India announce their plan to soon pass a bill banning Tobacco companies from displaying any source of advertising or sponsoring any public events. The advertising ban took effect from May 1, 2004. In October 2, 2005, the Government of India prohibited any new programs or movies from showing any actors or actresses smoking as it glorifies smoking and sends a bad message to its viewers. According to a CNN article written by Leo Juarez, some actors seem to support the smoking censorship but some film directors seem concerned that the ban might lead to other censorships in the future.

In 2001, the Government of India proposed a bill that would place a ban on tobacco ads to discourage the use of tobacco products among the teenagers. This decision gave rise to a huge debate about the ethical responsibility of the government on the use of tobacco products. In

Tobacco is one of the world’s most profitable industries. The top three producers of tobacco are: China, Brazil, and India, in that order. These industries provide direct and indirect work for many people in developing countries. Thus, like any good company it wishes to expose its products to the public by investing in ads and other merchandise of its product. All companies end goal (and of course this included tobacco) is to increase the appeal and acceptability of their product as well as to make the product available to the potential consumer. In the past couple of decades, tobacco has been a hotly debated subject from addiction, high blood pressure to lung disease. As time went on many countries started to band the product in some way shape or form and on February 6, 2001 the government of India (the third largest producer of tobacco in the world) dropped a bombshell on the tobacco industry when it too wanted to start its own band. The government would ban tobacco companies from advertising and sponsoring sports and cultural events all together (Case Studies, n.d.). India like many other European countries viewed the negative effects of smoking on its population and had boldly set out to ban tobacco ads from the public for three major reasons: the ads were found to be misleading, the introduction of a harmful product to its youth, and the increase cost of health care.

The arguments in favor of the government banning tobacco advertising generally begins with the belief that the government has the right to intervene in the best interest of its citizens. The banning of cocaine, which is generally seen as worldwide, is often used as an example of this. Public health is often the motive that is cited when countries such as Belgium and France banned tobacco advertising. It was that “…the French ban on advertising tobacco products was not unconstitutional as it was based on the need to protect public health and did not curtail the freedom of trade.” (ICMR, 2001)