The British American Tobacco Company: Business Ethics

Cigarette tobacco companies spend billions of dollars each year to market their products. Advertising has been a multi-million dollar projects for these companies especially when teenagers are involved. Now, these companies make about $35 billion annually, as well as causing six million deaths. Tobacco companies make money

When information was released to the public in 1939, tobacco companies found ways to discredit, and silence the public concern. In fact, previous to this tobacco manufacturers claimed an increase in health and medicinal properties for tobacco products. With the formation of the Council for Tobacco Research, in 1954, a direct link was sought between smoking and health related problems. Upon the finding of such evidence major cigarette manufacturers unite.

CVS Health announced in 2014 that it wanted to stop selling all tobacco related products. This will affect every CVS location in the United States of America. The problem that arises in the U.S. is the usage of tobacco products. As a successful pharmacy chain and a lucrative company, CVS health wants to do its best to strengthen the health of American citizens. In order to solve the tobacco problem, the health professionals are taking it upon themselves to make a difference. If the distribution of tobacco products come to a halt at CVS pharmacies, consumers will either stop buying the products all together or looking for the products elsewhere.

It has been proven that smoking is the cause of 30% of general cancer deaths and 80% of lung cancer deaths in the U.S. Lung cancer has also been found to be the biggest cause of cancer deaths among breast cancer, prostate cancer, and ovarian cancer. This year alone, 190,500 of about 600,900 cancer deaths will be caused by smoking tobacco. This means that one in every three cancer patients will die due to tobacco products. In fact, smoking tobacco caused such high amounts of lung cancer that tobacco companies are legally required to include a surgeon general’s warning that outlines the potential of developing cancer on their packaging. The numbers and warnings of smoking-related lung cancer can be seen everywhere from statistics to the companies themselves being held liable for the illnesses their products

Tobacco consumption is the number one cause of preventable deaths in the United States. In the United States, cigarette smoking is responsible for more than 480,000 deaths per year. That is around one in five deaths annually only because of smoking. On an average, the person who smokes dies ten years earlier than a non-smoker. These statistics are not mere numbers but speak about the gravity of the situation. The United States government should portray a more negative view on Tabaco to save the lives of many people worldwide (Centre for Disease and Prevention, second paragraph).

New Tobacco Atlas Estimates U.S. $35 Billion Tobacco Industry Profits and Almost 6 Million Annual Deaths. (2012) Retrieved August 2, 2015, from

According to the CDC, in 2012 cigarette and smokeless tobacco companies spent more than $9.6 billion on advertising and promotional expenses in the United States alone. This is an extremely atrocious amount of money to spend on a product that has been proven to harm or even kill its consumers. In addition, the world lung

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.

Now, more than ever, more and more people are beginning to look at tobacco use as a major public health concern. It is nineteen ninety nine, and the number of smokers is rising while the average age of smoking initiation decreases. There are those that believe using tobacco of any type should be illegal, or at least restricted. Others believe it is up to the person to choose whether to use tobacco products or not, however most of these people believe tobacco companies should warn their customers of their products harmful affects.

Health concerns are the primary issue for nearly all of the stakeholders. Employees care about their job security and integrity for their occupations. The government is responsible for ensuring the safety and overall welfare of its community. If tobacco is known as a health hazard to the citizens, then it is the responsibility of the government to act on it. The customers of the tobacco industry are another huge factor. Of course, they care about their health, the ingredients of the product, the quality, the cost, etc. Then there are the owners and shareholders who, while they may also care about the reputation of the business, they are mainly concerned with the continuation of the corporation and the profits from it.

However our concern here is not only about the cigarette as a product but with the ethics of cigarettes as well, that affect the social process of marketing. This is because marketing process makes things worse and is also considered as unethical, and as a result has a significant negative impact on the societal welfare. Multinational tobacco companies apply sophisticated strategies ( such as putting flavor in the cigarettes and placing cigarettes in the shops near the sweets to make them more appealing) and invest huge amounts of money for marketing, in order to establish brand familiarity and future loyalty among young peoplem, to secure profits in the long run. 'The tobacco epidemic is a man-made international health crisis, created and sustained by multinational tobacco corporations.' (Yach, Brinchmann, Bellet page 2).

The tobacco industry is important to the economy. In 1991, worldwide tobacco sales exceeded $59.8 billion and in 1992 the industry was rated as one of the top one hundred advertisers (Pechmann and Ratneshwar, 1994). However, there are high prices to pay - socially, economically, and personally - as a result of this industry. Annual mortality figures indicate that cigarette smoking is the number one cause of preventable death in the United States. An estimated 390,000 people die each year of smoke related illnesses, which is greater than the combined mortality for cocaine, crack, AIDS, homicide, suicide, and alcohol abuse (Botvin, G., Baker, Botvin, E., Dusenbury, Cardwell, and Diaz, 1993).

This problem of creating a trendy stylish image of cigarettes are hurting many people by recruiting new young smokers from all around the world, winning over sales due to the false image and then addiction. Third world countries are hurt the most by this unethical way of advertising because they don’t have money for this extra expense that they now need due to addiction. Critics claim that sophisticated promotions in a unsophisticated societies entice people who cannot afford the necessities of life to spend money on luxury- and a dangerous one at that. Every cigarette manufacturer is in the image business, and tobacco companies say their promotional slant is both reasonable and common. They point out that in the Third World a lot of people cannot understand what is written in the ads anyway, so the ads zero in on the more understandable visual image. Due to actions such as this and the negative effect it has on people economically and physically, this is a good example of how the tobacco industry is unethical.

There are several ethical philosophies in play here regarding the tobacco company and these ethical issues can be explored by analyzing the myriad of interplay of relationships

This case deals with the ethical dilemma that Tobacco manufactures face when selling tobacco products in third world countries. First, there is the ethical dilemma of business versus health. The opening and development of the tobacco business in Third World countries like China, Malaysia, Indonesia, India and Africa, is considered against the health consequences of tobacco use which according to an Oxford University epidemiologist, has estimated to cost 3 million lives annually rising to 10 million by 2050 without effective tobacco control program A second ethical dilemma is employment versus impoverishment, where the opportunities for work in the tobacco industry are considered against a background of malnutrition. This is a problem that