What happens when we make and publish tobacco, cigarette and smoking ads?
Smoking kills more people than car accidents, alcohol, homicides, illegal drugs and suicides combined. The following is what we are doing when we create, design or publish ads promoting tobacco and smoking: • Encouraging children or young adults to experiment with tobacco and thereby slip into regular use • Encouraging smokers to increase consumption • Reducing smokers’ motivation to quit • Encouraging former smokers to resume • Discouraging full and open discussion of the hazards of smoking as a result of media dependence on advertising revenues • Muting opposition to controls on tobacco as a result of the dependence of organisations receiving sponsorship from tobacco companies • Creating through the ubiquity of advertising, sponsorship, etc. an environment in which tobacco use is seen as familiar and acceptable and the warnings about its health are undermined. [Based on the Surgeon Genera’s report ‘Reducing the health consequences of smoking: 25 years of progress’ USDHHS, 1989 as pub
