How Harmful Are Tobacco Companies Targeting Teens?

Cigarette companies today are making copious amounts of money in sales, and with all that money it does not seem that they will stop even with the heavy opposition they have been facing in previous years. Cigarette prices have been steadily increasing over the years, and people are spending more money on them than ever before. Just recently the United States government has made another proposal to raise the prices of cigarettes by $2.10 a pack (Heinskien, Schleicher, Barker, Yawen, & Chaloupka, 2017, p.1860). Most cigarettes are up to around $7-10 a pack, which is slowly becoming less affordable for smokers. The problem with this is due to nicotine addiction it is going to take more than a price raise to deter smokers. To try to prevent younger kids from being swayed into tobacco products schools and parents across the U.S. need to inform their kids about the dangers of cigarette smoking (Small, Kushner, & Neufeld, 2012,

In referring to young adults, this population category is broad as it can entail college students, those entering workforce folowing graduation, young mothers as well as those in the military. Often, these population segments experience the stress of transition, a situation that is coupled by this being an age of experiementation. While these make them vilnerable to smoking influences, the tobacco industry complicates the situation through the vigourous promotion of its product. Exposure to marketing through promotions, advertising, the depiction in films significantly makes smoking be an acceptable trend among the young

The extent to which tobacco advertising contributes to the increase in smoking habits has been debated and still is being debated. The focus is heavily on the degree to which the advertising affects adolescents. Previous research which is explored above, suggests significant relationships between smoking behavior among youth and these advertisements. Tobacco companies on the other hand, have tried to prove their ads are not directed towards our youth. Specifically, the R.J. Reynolds tobacco company has run full page ads in national magazines advising youth to not smoke. They have asserted

The tobacco industry uses sponsorship and media to advertise its products, the best selling product being cigarettes. The industry’s targeted demographic has changed over the years from general interest in men, to an abrupt shift toward women, targeting them with slim cigarettes and “girly” brands. It is common knowledge that the tobacco campaign has targeted

In particular, nearly all tobacco use begins in childhood and adolescence. Tobacco industries have youth-targeted additives in their tobacco and smokeless tobacco to attract teens. There are many different fruit flavor tobacco and cigars that attract the youth. Even though there are hundreds of programs to diminish youth smoking and a sufficient amount of stories in the media on the dangers of tobacco consumption, generation after generation continue to use these toxic products, and family after family continues to grieve the shattering consequences. As a result, the tobacco industry is the only one reaping benefits, finically, from tobacco.

Most kids will experience a tobacco product before walking across the graduation stage from their local high school. With stricter regulations we can eradicate the false hope of fitting in with society through the commercials that project groups of friends whom consume the product and pretend their life is excelling due to the usage of a product. False advertisement should be against the law, so, our youth will not be subjected to distorted information. Our country shouldn’t allow corporations to exaggerate about their products behind the colorful tempting packages. If we were given the right information then, we would be compelled to develop a personal opinion based on the product. Finally, allowing us to process the information these corporations give us and letting

Their study’s goal was to show a link between tobacco advertisements and smoking uptake amongst people who otherwise would not have smoked, from 1993 to 1996. Pierce and colleagues findings were that “from these data, we estimate that 34% of all experimentation in California between 1993 and 1996 can be attributed to tobacco promotional activities. Nationally, this would be over 700000 adolescents each year.” The generalizability of this study shows how easily influenced people are by tobacco advertisements, and how many people are affected by these ads every

Governments collect tobacco taxes and law settlements accounting for only 25.8 billion each year.” Hall, W., & Doran, C. (2016). How Much Can the USA Reduce Health Care Costs by Reducing Smoking? PLoS Medicine, 13(5), e1002021. http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002021 . Third and last final assumption the author lists is that teenagers are drawn to smoking mainly because their parents and friends smoke, and not because of advertising. Even though, as mentioned in this article, “ Effects of Advertising on Youth (Age Group of 13-19 Years Age)”, the author explains that when an anti-smoking campaign used graphic ads that depicted the true nature and harms of cigarettes, 15-17 year olds smokers were more likely to quit smoking. Barve G, Sood A, Nithya S, Virmani T (2015)

At the age of fourteen, I had my first puff of smoke. Even before that I knew

In today’s modern world, cigarettes have become something of a phenomenon. They plague the earth’s environment, they cause a steady incline in the healthcare spending of countries ever year, and they bring death and harm to those that use them. Yet, cigarettes remain a big part of both American society and the world at large. Why? Well, it has everything to do with the big name tobacco companies that loom over every country’s economy and the little effort put into counteracting their efforts to destroy young, malleable minds. Cigarettes should be banned legally, because cigarette companies get too much economic and legal power from their products, the costs of cigarettes far outweigh the benefits, and spending on prevention programs does not

Tobacco use among adolescents has been increasing over the years due to marketing strategies that target adolescents and attempt to promote beliefs that influence smoking behaviors. Many of the smoking behaviors are established in adolescents and young adults who are more influenced by exposure to promotional marketing advertisements such as billboards, transit ads, and other strategies that impose acceptable social norms among their peers. According to the CDC, in 2012, 6.7% of middle school students and 23.3% of high school students were currently consuming a variety of tobacco products that included cigarettes, hookahs, smokeless tobacco, and pipes. Also, those who are initially occasional smokers become more likely to continue smoking in the future (CDC, 2012). E-cigarette advertising has also targeted youth tobacco use by increased target rating points 256% from 2011 to 2013 (Duke et al.,2014). The study attributes the trends in smoking to television advertising that influence the acceptability of using alternate tobacco products. According to Choi et al (2014), tobacco direct mail marketing was associated an increase in cigarette use among non-smokers and a lower change in smoking reduction among smokers in the sample. Although prior research has been conducted to investigate how tobacco marketing influences smoking behaviors, specific advertising techniques that attracted adolescent consumers were not determined. This study hypothesized that television

Tobacco and alcohol companies are more widespread than ever and are expanding their target age group in the process of them increasing profit margins for their specific company. Excessive alcohol consumption and the associated negative health effects are a major public health concern since past and more recent studies. “Almost 4% of all deaths worldwide are attributable to alcohol” (Graham 1). Also, more than half of people who are frequent smokers started prior to the legal smoking age of eighteen years old (Martino 2). A few years ago this underlying problem of smoking and drinking was not a main concern in the minds of the general public, but since the dawn of the health era these health concerns pose a daunting topic for health officials. The Marlboro girls, women representing beauty and class, not cancer and other diseases we models to the average person about how smoking can also make you this attractive. This was one of the greatest forms of marketing to younger population due to pretty girls and their actions. The times have changed from being able to smoke anywhere and everywhere to not being able to smoke in bars or restaurants and even taking ashtrays out of cars. There has been a drastic increase in the targeting of youth throughout the years as well. Since the beginning of selling products to consumers there have been different techniques to do so. The alcohol and tobacco companies have used and abused these marketing techniques for years. However, there is some

With the right structure and appeal to the target consumer, marketing can make or break the sales of a product. Tobacco companies are constantly looking for ways to attract new consumers ensuring each generation of teens and young adults are addicted to their products; continuing their success and cash flow. The most effective method of finding new ways to appeal to consumers is through market research and over the years, tobacco companies have done a considerable amount. Their research shows that since the 1960s they’ve had an astonishingly high interest in young smokers, despite their claims to only be interested in adult consumers. Why do tobacco companies have such a high interest in teens and young adults? Because their studies show that people seldom start smoking after the age of 25 and begin smoking before the age of 18. Out of 5500 research documents that were collected, 20% of them were teen and young adult

Over the last decade of two there has been a huge push to end the use of tobacco products such as cigarettes and chewing tobacco. These tobacco products have been proven time and time again to cause numerous serious health conditions and can be the direct cause of deadly conditions like lung cancer, mouth cancer and heart disease. Typically when one thinks of smoking and chewing, it’s an older generation that comes to mind. However, it’s been shown that tobacco use primarily starts in the early adolescent years. The CDC states that nearly 9 out of 10 cigarette smokers, smoked their first cigarette by age 18. The numbers of adolescent smokers grow almost daily. It’s estimated that more than 3800 youth aged 18 years or younger have smoked their first cigarette, and an additional 2,100 youth and young adults become daily smokers. (CDC, 2011)

With tobacco products available and easily accessible to youth and minors, Healton and associates argue that teenagers’ social learning process has become unusual, and adolescents believe tobacco products “cannot be too bad” if it is sold like anything else. According to a 1990 study, Americans under 18 years old smoke 947 million packs of cigarettes annually (103). The fight against the tobacco industry appealing to youth as consumers started over two decades ago. According to Feighery, Borzekowski, Schooler, and Flora, when the U.S. Food and Drug Association (FDA) made the decision in 1996 to issue regulations designed to limit tobacco sales to young people, it was acting on citizen concern about tobacco use in teenagers (123).