Power of Tobacco Industry Lobbies

One of the health problems facing the U.S. is that teenagers consider smoking to be an attractive activity, emulating images in entertainment, following peer influence, and responding to advertising of the large tobacco companies. This situation may not be a problem during the youthful years, but it often leads to addiction in the adult years. As adolescents are forming their self-concepts, they are vulnerable to the opinions of others, and cigarette advertising effectively reaches children while they are very young, shaping their perceptions and behavior (Hooked on Tobacco 7). One survey revealed that 98 percent of adolescents recognized cigarette advertising characters, and 41 percent of the three-year-olds surveyed said they liked cigarettes (Hooked on Tobacco, 5-6). Appealing characters, such as Joe Camel are perceived to be attractive and cool, leading youth into possible he

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vised sports events (Howard, 11, Tobacco giants, 1). In actuality, a top-heavy advocacy group for the tobacco industry focuses on lobbying, research, and media projects. This type of mobilization effort is mostly managed from the top, protecting the financial interests of the upper middle class members, even of there are hundreds of thousands of members (Skocpol, 12). The tobacco industry owners and executives are a part of the wealthy elite who are eager to protect their economic advantages and privileges. Even though there are large organizations that work to protect the health interests of the public, the pressures and influence of the tobacco business interests seem to be greater in effect, at least at the present time. The tobacco industry spends millions of dollars trying to influence public policy, favorable to their interests. It makes major financial contributions to elected officials and political parties, payments to governments to support their needed infrastructure, and large investments in sophisticated public relations campaigns (Politics 1). Since 1995 the U.S. tobacco companies have donated more than $32 million in political contributions with over 80 percent of this amount paid to influence federal electi
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1294
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)

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