Cigarette Advertising

The purpose of this paper is to discuss whether or not cigarette advertisements should be banned. The paper will present both the pro and con points of view on the issue. It will then conclude by taking the position that advertising for cigarettes should indeed be prohibited.

At this point in time, cigarette manufacturers spend over two billion dollars per year on the advertisement of their products. Of that total, over six hundred million dollars goes to newspaper and magazine advertising; almost three million dollars goes to billboard advertising; almost one hundred fifty million dollars are spent on give-away promotions; and sixty million dollars are used for investment in public entertainment activities such as sports and cultural events ("Ban Cigarette Advertising?" 1987, p. 568). It is apparent from these figures that the tobacco industry considers advertising to be an important asset in their marketing campaign.

It has recently become an issue as to whether or not cigarette advertising as such should be banned. In fact, a bill has been brought forth for consideration in Congress, which could lead to a prohibition of advertising for tobacco products. On the one side of the debate are such organizations as the American Medical Association and the American Cancer Society, both of which are in favor of banning the ads. On the other side are the Tobacco Institute, and various advertising agencies and newspaper representatives, as well as the American Civil Liberties Unio

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a free society, the people must be free to do foolish things, so long as their conduct does not provably, demonstrably, significantly harm others" (Kilpatrick, 1986, p. 6). In a similar manner, Ira Glasser, the executive director of the American Liberties Union, states that he has never smoked and considers it to be a serious health hazard. However, he opposes the idea of banning cigarette advertisements because it would be a form of censorship, and because historical evidence shows that such bans do not work in the way they are intended (Glasser, p. 286). Glasser fears that the censorship of cigarette ads could lead to additional forms of censorship in the future. Furthermore, he notes that there is no evidence that cigarette smoking declined when tobacco ads were banned from television. Glasser proposes that instead of banning cigarette ads, perhaps the best solution would be to allow "a fair contest between medical facts and the tobacco industry's self-serving propaganda" (Glasser, p. 286). Glasser believes that if both sides of the story were presented to the public, the medical facts would win out, and at the same time the country's First Amendment would be maintained. Melvin L. Wulf, on the other hand, believes that t

Category: Philosophy - C