ed tobacco advertising on teens and women. Companies selling Camel cigarettes used Joe Camel, a cartoon-like character, to influence teens to smoke. With women, Phillip Morris has tried to associate smoking with the womenÆs rights movement and equality by advocating smoking as a freedom that equates to women having equal privileges with me. Slogans for Virginia Slims like ôYouÆve Come a Long Way, Babyö, ôItÆs a Woman Thingö, and ôFind Your Voiceö were purposefully designed to carry such messages by Phillip Morris (Wilson 2003, 70).
The result of such appeals to women has been detrimental to womenÆs health as more women began smoking over the past half century. According to Weissman, ôLung cancer kills 50 percent more women than does breast cancerö (Wilson 2003, 69). Other exotic or female-oriented campaigns continue to push tobacco products to women. Society has a responsibility to intervene in such efforts, as it did successfully by getting the Joe Camel character banned in light of a major increase in teen smoking. Failure to intervene in such matters puts women, teens and others at risk for nicotine addiction, the costs of which are staggering to society.
(1) The drug OxyContin has become popular for treating severe pain because of its extremely effective nature in reliving chronic pain. It is highly addictive and produces an intense euphoria that has made it the number one choice of criminals because of its enormous popularity for both those afflicted with chronic pain and those who use it for recreational purposes. As Roche maintains, ôSo popular and addictive is OxyContin these days that it has stirred up a blizzard of a crime waveö (Wilson 2003, 79). Addiction to prescription painkillers has dramatically increased over the past two decades. From well-publicized cases of Hollywood personalities being addicted to such drugs to significant increases in crime due their popularity for recreational us...