India's Ban on Tobacco

Tobacco companies advertise in magazines, promote their products in convenience stores and market their brands through websites and social networks. Many of these tobacco industries get publicity and attract more young customers when using the newly in media to promote their products. Many of these tobacco companies don’t understand that tobacco advertising is a huge public health issue that increases smoking. Tobacco company advertising and promoting is the start of the use of tobacco among teenagers. Now, these media and magazine advertisements about cigars have caused teenagers to be exposed to cigarette advertising. Not only that but also these teenagers find ads appealing and also increase their desire to smoke. Cigarette companies spent about $8.37 billion on advertising and promotional expenses in the United States in 2011.

Although tobacco advertisements are banned, people still consume it. The ban started in 1971 and since then has become even more strict on the sponsoring and promotion of tobacco brand logos. Now, all tobacco ads used, dissuade users from consuming. Advertisements in general can be obnoxious and tiresome, but they are sometimes necessary for the seller to get their point across. Ads are either trying to get money from the consumer or driving to change a person’s mind positively. The main reasoning for the creation of advertisements is to persuade the viewer or audience through the evocation of ethos, pathos, and logos, to have a change of mind about the product. The ads I chose are both similar, but have different goals towards their audience.

Tobacco has existed for long as we have known about history, but due to the negative effects of it to the broader community Tobacco has sparked greater controversy across the globe. Many people argue that it is the government’s responsibility to protect the individual but on the contrary some disagree and believe it’s up to the individual. This essay will elaborate above mentioned aspects and lead to a logical conclusion.

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.

     Should tobacco advertising be restricted? This is a very controversial issue. There is the idea that young children that smoke started smoking because of advertisements, but there is also the idea that children start smoking for other reasons. Many big, well-known tobacco companies like RJ Reynolds are being sued for their advertisements. On Monday April 20th, 1998 the jury heard a testimony from Lynn Beasly, the marketing vice president of the RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company. The courts believed that the advertisement was directed towards children under the age of 18, due to a document from the RJ Reynolds Board of Directors showing that they set a goal to increase the company's market share among 14

Tobacco ads have been barred from television for over twenty years. Young children don’t need the influence to smoke or dip, considering they’ll have enough peer pressure to do so later in life. By essentially censoring television ads, the government decreases the advertising power of tobacco companies. However, there are simply some things that should not be censored. When censored, any sort of art loses its meaning. When the government tries to censor art, such as music, paintings, digital art, movies, or TV shows, people can no longer truly express their feelings or convey the message they were attempting to portray.

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 intervention of the government defies one’s one will regarding health. The legalization of advertisements and the production of tobacco should go hand in

The following statistics gave a solid argument as to why the government of India was on track in banning tobacco advertisement. In 1981, the Supreme Court (of Appeal) in Belgium gave its ruling that a ban on tobacco advertising was not unconstitutional. In 1991 the French Constitutional Council declared 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.

In conclusion, the tobacco industry is very harmful to society’s health. Cigarettes are the only legal consumer products in the world that cause half of their long-term users to die prematurely. Putting a ban on advertisement was just a start to not advertise so the tobacco industry would not solicit children, but the tobacco industry has come up with different strategies to solicit adolescents even more. If a law was passed to ban tobacco completely, citizens of the United States would not have to worry about second hand smoke, reduces the chance of cancer, and health

Advertising for tobacco is another source that cause teenagers smoke and adults smoke. Recently, tobacco companies have found new ways to promote their products to youth. They support their sporting events, concerts and movie. Many people favor idols or stars smoke in the movies and they seems very cool. And Teenagers are curious about imitation. Smoke containing nicotine acts as a stimulant to the brain. Nicotine in the bloodstream acts to make the smoker feel calm. In fact, nicotine is a lethal poison, affecting the heart, blood vessels, and hormones. Tobacco smoke contains over 4,000 chemical compounds. More than 60 of these are known or suspected to cause cancer. What is more, secondhand smoke can be harmful in many ways and it ruins thousands of non-smoking people, children's health. The US Surgeon General and the US Food and Drug Administration are among those who have examined the evidence and concluded that tobacco advertising does increase overall consumption. If we ban adverts on tobacco products, they will gradually lose their appeal, because they won't symbolize anything "cool", "smart" or "amazing". Tobacco products will become ordinary consumption goods and thus the number of young people who take up smoking in order to "be somebody" will decrease.

Let ask smokers if they has started smoking because of the advertisement they saw when they were kid. And all the people how has not smoked in their entire life, if they were influenced by the ad. Most smokers’ answers are because of their family member or loved once, or even curiosity. Therefore, there is no point banning only the advertisement.

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.

Can a ban of advertising on tobacco products keep young adults from developing the habit of smoking? Can it keep them away from trying it out? The Government of India thought so when it announced on Feb 6, 2001 that it intend to forward legislation to ban advertising on tobacco. I am going to examine the case for this proposed legislation. The announcement sparked a fierce debate over the issue. Is it ethical for the Government to decide what adults do? What about the freedom of choice? Well the debate seek answer these questions.

For me tobacco is one of the useful but useless products that are consumed by some class of the human race in general. In the year 2001 the Government of India had announce an intention to lay an embargo on the advertisement of tobacco in the media in general, in-order to prevent luring the younger generation from getting involved in this act and also to arm the government with powers to launch an anti-Tobacco Program. After the declarations made by the government there is a negative uprising against the ban that the government want to lay on the advertisements of the tobacco in general. Some ideal people have seen the decision taken by the government as an impossible decision that can never come into fruition, even to the degree where some prominent media personnel like, Suhel Seth, CEO, Equus Advertising said have to speak against the intention of the government by saying, "The ban does not have teeth. It is a typical knee-jerk reaction by any Government to create some kind of popularity for itself.