What is the economic impact of a tobacco advertising ban?
• A study on tobacco consumption and employment, released by the Society for the Study of Addiction and the Centre for Health Economics of the University of York, shows that vigorous policies to reduce smoking are likely to increase and not decrease employment. The reason is that when people stop smoking the money does not disappear from the economy. It is spent on other goods and services, which the study shows are more labour intensive, and thus produce more jobs. If a total ban on tobacco advertising in Britain resulted in a reduction in consumption of 5-10 % (an estimate of the 1992 UK governments own report), the authors expect a net increase of 15,000 jobs (29). • Tobacco advertising represents only a small fraction of the total advertising budget. In 1988 tobacco advertising represented on average only 1,6 % of the total advertising budget in the European Community (30). In France tobacco advertising represented 0,5 % of the total advertising budget in 1990 (31), in the UK 0,7 %
