The Tobacco Industry: Profiting From Death

The American College Health Association recommends that colleges and universities "Develop a strongly worded tobacco policy that reflects the best practices in tobacco prevention, cessation, and control.” More and more colleges need to push the Tobacco free

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.

Over the last few decades, tobacco and nicotine prevention efforts have risen to an all time high. Prevention efforts focus on education to the public of the negative effects on one’s health when using tobacco and nicotine products, as well as with pleas to healthcare policymakers to increase restrictions on product manufacturing and sales. One policy effort growing in popularity in the United States is called Tobacco 21, which proposes to raise the legal age of purchase for consumers of tobacco and nicotine products to 21 years of age (Farber, Pakhale, & Neptune, 2016). Farber, Pakhale, and Neptune (2016) state that 90% of tobacco and nicotine users begin smoking before the age of 18, with 99% of users starting before the age of 26. Lower smoking cessation rates are associated with earlier ages of initiation and the tobacco industry is known to target youth in advertisement of these products lending to the early age of initiation. The tobacco industry themselves admit that increasing the age allowed for purchase to exclude youth would substantially effect their sales. Tobacco 21 laws also deter adolescents from gaining tobacco or nicotine products from friends 18 to 21 years of age, which is the most likely age group to supply younger teens. With this knowledge, placing tighter restrictions on consumers younger than 21 years of age, using the Tobacco 21 policy, may deter tobacco and nicotine initiation in hopes to prevent individual use at all in the future (Farber

Because of the alluring advertising to high school teens from TV and friends, over “23 percent of high school students have used a form of tobacco in the past month, selecting from flavored cigars, electronic cigarettes, and other products” (“Teen Smoking”). Because Vaping Companies, such as JUUL and PHIX, are advertised to teens saying the device is smart and satisfying, high school students underestimate the long term effects of e-cigarettes and tobacco. The number of students who use an e-cigarette every month has exponentially increased because the companies do not address the health effects, but rather, the companies only goal is to increase revenue for themselves. In 2015, vaping companies, gas stations, and grocery stores made an estimated total of “3.3 billion dollars” on vaping devices (“U.S. Vapor Market”). This number, which has continued to increase, is largely formed by teen E-Cigarette users. Although this income number would increase if these machines were legalized for minors, companies would most likely use this money for more advertising, attracting even more high school

middle (grades 6-8) and high school (grades 9-12) students, CDC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) analyzed data from the 2011-2014 National Youth Tobacco Surveys (NYTS). In 2014, e-cigarettes were the most commonly used tobacco product among middle (3.9%) and high (13.4%) school students. Between 2011 and 2014, statistically significant increases were observed among these students for current use of both e-cigarettes and hookahs (p<0.05), while decreases were observed for current use of more traditional products, such as cigarettes and cigars, resulting in no change in overall tobacco use. Consequently, 4.6 million middle and high school students continue to be exposed to harmful tobacco product constituents, including nicotine.” (Arrazola

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

Did you know, smoking causes more than” 440,000 deaths” per year? (“Effects of Tobacco” 1). That is an overwhelming number of deaths that could be prevented if only the individuals did not use tobacco. As of 2008, East Tennessee State University has adopted a tobacco-free policy for not only the safety of students, but their overall mental and physical health as well. That policy has been increasing on college campuses at a nationwide level. As of 2009, the American College Health Association adopted a position statement on a no tobacco use policy that encourages colleges and universities to become 100% tobacco free. As you can assume this has caused major debates on whether these policies should be established or not. In our current society, because of the policy many schools have chosen to be a part of that movement. There are 1,713 smoke free campuses and 1,427 100% tobacco free campuses in the United States. These numbers are substantial. There are many reasons that campuses should adapt tobacco-free policies on their university school grounds. Tobacco should be banned from ETSU, and other college campuses because it is a health hazard to the smokers and bystanders, it encourages individuals to stop smoking or never to start, and it makes the transition from school to the career field much easier.

Tobacco has been one of the biggest staples of America throughout history and culture. It acted as a saviour and a basis to the economies of the new world (colonies in North America). However, health concerns have also revealed the looming dangers of tobacco.Even though the adverse effects of smoking are common knowledge, the threat still lingers. Smoking is a habit that builds on itself in regarding negative effects. These negative effects affect anybody. I lost my aunt to lung cancer via cigarettes. Tobacco is not just harmless recreational fun; it is a poison hiding in our culture. Recently, The New York Times reported that The United States Chamber of Commerce has helped tobacco companies who intend to strike down laws constricting the expansion to foreign territory. Jon maa who is a general surgeon denounces this disturbing agreement in concern of health and sleazy monetary gains by the tobacco corporations.

The use of tobacco is a very controversial topic here in the United States. The harmful side effects of tobacco are well known and consequently, many believe that it should be outlawed. Though this has not yet occurred, constant regulations on the industry and

As a nation, the United States of America has recently declared a war against the tobacco industry. There are now graphic commercials and advertisements suggesting the negative effects of tobacco cigarette use. However, according to the World Health Organization there remain over one billion tobacco smokers in the world (Rom, Corelli, Valacchi & Reznick, 2015). Tobacco use has been associated with and linked to six leading causes of death in the world which include Ischemic heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, lower respiratory infections, chronic obtrusive pulmonary disease, tuberculosis and lung cancer (The Who, 2014). The World Health organization suggests that tobacco use is one of the most preventable causes of death in the world, but unfortunately, it remains a growing problem due to marketing, promotion, and lobbyists. As a social worker, it is important to consider this as an issue that is brought up by the client. According to the CDC (2013) 17.8% of adults 18 and older are current cigarette smokers.

Surprisingly, in 1998, ten years after the Surgeon General 's report, Phillip Morris, a leading tobacco company changed their stance, saying “overwhelming medical and scientific consensus that cigarette smoking causes diseases” and, moreover, that smoking “is addictive as that term is most commonly used today (p. 10).” This change in stance by big tobacco has brought warning labels on tobacco product, informational guidance on resources for quitting and changes in marketing to what Arnold, Buechamp, and Bowie (2013) describe as susceptible consumers, in this case, teens and young adults.

The tobacco industry kills more people in North America from Monday to Thursday of each week than the terrorists murdered in total on September 11, 2001. That sounds unrealistic, doesn’t it? Well, smoking is an epidemic that affects us all, whether you are a smoker or you aren’t. In order to stop this epidemic, we need to

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).

Attention getter: According to Tobacco-Free Kids, “about 400,000 people die from their own smoking each year, and about 50,000 die from second-hand smoke annually. Smoking kills more people than AIDS, alcohol, car accidents, illegal drugs, murders and

Tobacco; one of the most profitable products in history, an addictive substance, and a deadly killer. Smoking tobacco used to be a thing that was endorsed in American society. Now, with the new medical advances and knowledge, society has seen the side effects of smoking and how fatal it actually is. Teenagers have been one of the largest age groups that have been affected by smoking. After analyzing all possible reasons as to why teenagers would smoke while knowing it can affect their health, three possible reasons stuck out the most. Teenagers smoke despite knowing the health problems that originate from smoking because of peer pressure, an “invincibility” mentality, and seeing a role model or family member smoke.