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... ign money if they challenged tobacco. Tobacco companies also exerted influence against anti-tobacco politicians by contributing to their competitors campaigns. Generous awards, special interest money, and jobs after public service sweetened the deal and bought silence and inactivity on legislative bills for many years.
Now public awareness and the media make tobacco supporters less popular. Congress has a moral and public policy duty to prevent smoking in children (Common Cause, 1 - 2). The goal for tobacco companies is now to avoid losing legal and political battles. The battle to alter public opinion on smoking and health is already lost (Stauber, 3). Eventually ignoring ethics leads to more laws and regulations as society attempts to alter unethical business practice (Daft, 2). One ploy used by the tobacco companies to ease the minds of nervous consumers was the creation of the low tar cigarette.
The actual tar exposure and the subsequent health risk are about the same as a conventional cigarette. and nicotine amounts listed on the cigarette label came from machines designed to smoke the cigarette, not humans. The appeal to the public came from the implied lower tar and nicotine yield and thus a lower health risk. The tobacco companies documents indicate the effects of tobacco were known for many years.
The cigarettes were designed to give low readings when machines smoked them and higher yield when people smoked them (Jarvis, 2). The tar In 1978 the US Tobacco Institute indicated passive smoking might be harmful (Low, 1). This changed smoking into a public health dilemma for the entire community. After successful workman's compensation cases, came the introduction of restrictions for smoking on the job. Consumption of cigarettes and profits dropped in response. Tobacco companies responded to another attack by advertising, attempting to discredit medical research, promoting smokers rights organizations, and by evaluating for sick building syndrome.
Sick building syndrome is a general term used to refer to the development of a variety of signs and symptoms believe to be caused by exposure to indoor air (Low, 1). It diverted unwelcome attention away from smoking in the workplace, and focused on pollutants other than smoke as the cause of employee illness. Evidence shows most smokers begin smoking at about fourteen years of age and almost all begin before reaching adulthood. Studies indicate the earlier the habit begins, the harder it is to quit. Most smokers are addicted to nicotine before they are old enough to legally purchase cigarettes.
Compared to smokers that begin smoking in adulthood, adolescents are more likely to smoke heavily all their life, die prematurely, and succumb to smoking related illness. As with other health related concerns, teens are notoriously unconcerned with future health risks. Adolescents underestimate the harmful effects of cigarettes and do not realize addiction to nicotine is possible even with experimentation. Nicotine delivered through tobacco is quite addictive. Teens believe they can avoid the long-term harmful effects by smoking for only a few years. Most young people do not plan on smoking for the rest of their lives at the outset.
Because of their incomplete growth and development, teens are incapable of understanding what smoking will do to them physically and emotionally. Cigarettes are sold everywhere. Access for minors is easy with vending machines. Convenience stores often sell cigarettes next to the candy racks. Youth receive the message society is not concerned with preventing tobacco use in young people (SAILOR, 1). Another way tobacco companies manipulate youth is by sponsoring sporting and music events.
A large number of youth attend these events and tobacco companies get high visibility advertising for their investment. It cements the connection between athletic prowess, artistic expression, glamour, entertainment, individuality, and cigarettes (SAILOR, 2). Tobacco companies indirectly imply cigarettes are a part of that world and smoking is a way of belonging. Despite the attacks on tobacco in this country their profits remain high as they relocate their battle onto foreign soil. Their long-range goal is to maintain current profits in industrialized nations and concentrate their resources on third world countries, Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union. In the past ten years sales in the US fell seventeen percent, but exports rose two hundred fifty-nine percent.
For RJ Reynolds and Philip Morris sixty percent of their profits are generated from foreign countries (Low, 3). Developing countries are vulnerable to tobacco companies in several ways. Many foreign countries have no advertising controls in place to limit tobacco advertising. They also do not have appropriate health warning requirements and few, if any, pressure groups fighting for tobacco controls.
There are usually no age restrictions or limitations on public smoking. Foreign populations are poorly educated as to tobaccos harmful effects and there is no health information directed to the tobacco companies target teens. Because cigarettes sold overseas have a higher tar and nicotine content, they are very addictive and more lethal (Low, 3). should not rule business. The goal is to eliminate the tobacco industry not merely drive them into bankruptcy (Gibbs, 2). Not long ago it was unheard of to fight a tobacco company in court and win.
Eliminating smoking may be possible sooner than we realize. Measures to end the reign of tobacco should begin in the United States. The American Medical Association has recommended the elimination of all tobacco advertising, regulation of cigarettes as drug delivery devices, prohibition of tobacco exports, and to continue aggressive legal action to recover medical costs from tobacco companies. Society must convey the importance of preventing youth smoking by demanding and enforcing no tobacco use on school and restricted public property and strictly penalizing distribution of cigarettes to minors. Effective counseling and treatment for addicted smokers is essential to help end tobaccos grip on the public. The public attitude toward smoking continues to shift in favor of healthier life habits.
Finally public pressure is forcing the unethical tobacco companies to pay up. Bibliography: Works Cited Daft, Richard L. (1997) Management. Fort Worth: Dryden Press Gibbs, W. Was (1998) Big Tobaccos Worst Nightmare. In Scientific American.
Available: web (10 - 18 - 99) Jarvis, Martin, and Bates, Clive (1999) Why Low Tar Cigarettes Dont Work and How the Tobacco Industry Has Fooled The Smoking Public. Available: web Krone, James (1997) Ethics are Nice, but Business is Business and related articles. In Across The Board. 1997, v. 34, n. 4, p. 16 (7) Low, Bernard (1998) Tobacco 2 - The Opium Wars of the 21 st Century: Tobacco and the Developing World. Available: web Stauber, John and Rampton, Sheldon (1995) Smokin!
How the American Tobacco Industry Employs PR Scum to Continue Its Murderous Assault on Human Lives. Available: web The Inhalers. In Common Cause Magazine. (Spring 1995) Available: web The Tobacco Use Among Youth. SAILOR Maryland's online public information network. Available: web sale. I.
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