Tobacco companies forced to run anti-smoking ads
National television and newspaper adverts will correct decades of lies and misinformation about smoking
Leading tobacco companies in the US have begun running television and newspapers advertisements as punishment for deceiving the public about the dangers of smoking.
The national ad campaign, which launched yesterday, is the result of a federal government lawsuit filed against tobacco giants in 1999.
The court sided with the government in 2006, ruling that companies broke civil racketeering laws and defrauded consumers by lying about the health effects of smoking.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Lorillard Inc, Philip Morris USA, RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company and Altria Group were ordered to make “corrective statements,” but a series of appeals meant the move was delayed for over a decade, The Guardian reports.
“The tobacco companies’ basic strategy for everything, whether it’s science or regulation or litigation, is delay,” said Stan Glantz, an expert on tobacco company strategy at the University of California San Francisco.
Full-page ads will appear in the Sunday issues of more than 40 newspapers until April, as well as on prime-time television slots over the next year. The ads will not appear on social media, however, and some experts warn that it could have limited reach, particularly among younger audiences.
One commercial reads: “Cigarette companies intentionally designed cigarettes with enough nicotine to create and sustain addiction,” while another reports that “more people die every year from smoking than murder, AIDS, suicide, drugs, car crashes, and alcohol, combined”.
These statements are a “big win for public health, but Big Tobacco’s deceit and manipulation continues,” says Jim Knox, managing director of American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network California.
The tobacco industry still “manipulates products to get around existing regulations, produces and promotes new tobacco products and spends billions of dollars on marketing to deceive the public and to addict young, new customers to replace dying smokers,” he writes in the Sacramento Bee.
Smoking remains the nation’s leading preventable cause of death and illness, with nearly half a million Americans dying from tobacco-related disease every year.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
'It may not be surprising that creative work is used without permission'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Justin Klawans, The Week US Published
-
5 simple items to help make your airplane seat more comfortable
The Week Recommends Gel cushions and inflatable travel pillows make a world of difference
By Catherine Garcia, The Week US Published
-
How safe are cruise ships in storms?
The Explainer The vessels are always prepared
By Devika Rao, The Week US Published
-
The complicated problem of banning menthol cigarettes
The Explainer Banning menthol smokes will save lives, public health officials say. But this is an election year.
By Harold Maass, The Week US Published
-
The dramatic rise of vaping in the UK
feature Increasing numbers of children are using e-cigarettes adding to the growing chorus of alarm over the potential impact on public health
By The Week Staff Published
-
New Zealand’s new smoking ban
feature Anyone born in 2009 or later will not be able to buy cigarettes but there are concerns about a growing black market
By Richard Windsor Published
-
Pros and cons of vaping
Pros and Cons Health experts warn UK could ‘sleepwalk’ into public health ‘catastrophe’ due to e-cigs
By The Week Staff Published
-
Neanderthal gene ‘caused up to a million Covid deaths’
Speed Read Genetic tweak found in one in six Britons means cells in the lungs are slower to launch defences
By The Week Staff Published
-
Legalising assisted dying: a complex, fraught and ‘necessary’ debate
Speed Read The Assisted Dying Bill – which would allow doctors to assist in the deaths of terminally ill patients – has relevance for ‘millions’
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
Vaccinating children: it’s decision time for the health secretary as kids return to school
Speed Read Sajid Javid readying NHS England to roll out jab for children over 12, amid fears infections will rocket
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
‘Vaccination blunts, but does not defeat’: exploring Israel’s fourth Covid wave
Speed Read Two months ago, face masks were consigned to bins. Now the country is in a ‘unique moment of epidemiological doubt’
By The Week Staff Published