Why ban sponsorship for tobacco products?
• The tobacco industry does not engage in sponsorship for philanthropic reasons, but to encourage smoking. As one RJ Reynolds Executive said: “We’re in the sports business. We use sports as an avenue for advertising our products” (25). • A survey, reported in the Lancet of 15 November 1997, shows that boys who cited motor racing as their favourite television sport were more likely than others to be able to name the leading tobacco sponsors. Worryingly, if they were not regular smokers then, nearly twice as many became regular smokers than the boys who did not watch motor racing (26).
