A US law, brought into force after 15 years, has banned the display of tobacco advertising to non adults. But the tobacco companies are not going to give ground so easily.
The law is yet another attempt in the world’s biggest tobacco products market to curtail the easily avoidable deterioration in health of coming generations. In 1964, the Surgeon General of the United States released a famous report that linked tobacco use with cancer and other diseases. This report led to laws requiring warning labels on tobacco products and restrictions on tobacco advertisements. In April 1970, US Congress passed the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act banning advertising of cigarettes on television and radio. As such laws began to come into force, tobacco marketing became subtler, with sweets shaped like cigarettes put on the market, and a number of advertisements designed to appeal to children, resulting in increased exposure to and adoption of smoking among children. Then in 1998, the historic legal settlement between four major tobacco companies dubbed “Big Tobacco” and 46 US states, prohibited tobacco companies from selling tobacco products to children.
But, anti-smoking groups and public health organizations stand their ground and argue that tobacco companies, which spend $35 million on an average each day on marketing, have continued to direct advertising to teens and children in subtle ways. According to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, about 20 percent of high school students smoke. Children are a critical target population for anti-smoking efforts, with studies showing that 90 percent of smokers hooked on to it before they reached 18.
In fact, the secretary of Department of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, recently stated in a press conference, “Every day, nearly 4,000 kids under 18 try their first cigarette and 1,000 kids under 18 become daily smokers”. The rules will “help our kids stay healthy by making it harder for tobacco companies to target them with harmful and addictive products”, says Sebelius. The retaliatory noises, however, have already begun.
In the first legal challenge to the new law, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco and Lorillard, the country’s second- and third-largest tobacco producers, argued that certain provisions violated their rights to free speech as per the First Amendment. The complaint was filed in Kentucky, the state with the highest number of adult smokers. The Kentucky court struck down a rule that would have limited advertising to black text sans graphics except in adult magazines or retail establishments open only to adults. The judge ruled that companies can use imagery and colors to communicate the purpose of the product and name of the producer. Such ruling allows, for example, Reynolds to continue use of a camel drawing in its advertising for Camel cigarettes.
The law is yet another attempt in the world’s biggest tobacco products market to curtail the easily avoidable deterioration in health of coming generations. In 1964, the Surgeon General of the United States released a famous report that linked tobacco use with cancer and other diseases. This report led to laws requiring warning labels on tobacco products and restrictions on tobacco advertisements. In April 1970, US Congress passed the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act banning advertising of cigarettes on television and radio. As such laws began to come into force, tobacco marketing became subtler, with sweets shaped like cigarettes put on the market, and a number of advertisements designed to appeal to children, resulting in increased exposure to and adoption of smoking among children. Then in 1998, the historic legal settlement between four major tobacco companies dubbed “Big Tobacco” and 46 US states, prohibited tobacco companies from selling tobacco products to children.
But, anti-smoking groups and public health organizations stand their ground and argue that tobacco companies, which spend $35 million on an average each day on marketing, have continued to direct advertising to teens and children in subtle ways. According to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, about 20 percent of high school students smoke. Children are a critical target population for anti-smoking efforts, with studies showing that 90 percent of smokers hooked on to it before they reached 18.
In fact, the secretary of Department of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, recently stated in a press conference, “Every day, nearly 4,000 kids under 18 try their first cigarette and 1,000 kids under 18 become daily smokers”. The rules will “help our kids stay healthy by making it harder for tobacco companies to target them with harmful and addictive products”, says Sebelius. The retaliatory noises, however, have already begun.
In the first legal challenge to the new law, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco and Lorillard, the country’s second- and third-largest tobacco producers, argued that certain provisions violated their rights to free speech as per the First Amendment. The complaint was filed in Kentucky, the state with the highest number of adult smokers. The Kentucky court struck down a rule that would have limited advertising to black text sans graphics except in adult magazines or retail establishments open only to adults. The judge ruled that companies can use imagery and colors to communicate the purpose of the product and name of the producer. Such ruling allows, for example, Reynolds to continue use of a camel drawing in its advertising for Camel cigarettes.
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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).
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