You know I really dislike smoking but this isn't right either

[Todd-'o'-Vision]

New Justice Department plan to ban
the Marlboro Man is 'health facism'

WASHINGTON, DC -- A plan by the Justice Department to outlaw the Marlboro Man by restricting cigarette advertising to text-only formats; criminalize all cigarette vending machines; and require half the space on cigarette packs to be reserved for "graphic" health warnings is "Nanny State health fascism" at its worst, the Libertarian Party charged today.

"This plan treats adults like children, and violates the First
Amendment," said Steve Dasbach, the party's executive director.

"In the interest of forcing Americans to make healthier decisions about smoking, and in an effort to prove it is 'tough' on Big Tobacco, the Bush administration is running roughshod over civil liberties and the free market."

This week, the Justice Department revealed that it will ask a federal judge to impose unprecedented restrictions on tobacco companies' marketing efforts. Federal bureaucrats want to:

* Prohibit all photographs and color in cigarette advertisements, and restrict them to text-only, black-and-white formats. Ads would also have to devote 50% of their space to "graphic" health warnings.

* Ban all cigarette vending machines sales -- even in adult-only
establishments like bars.

* Require cigarette packages to carry health-warning inserts.

* Forbid any tobacco product from being labeled "light" or "mild."

* Require half the space on every package of cigarettes to be reserved for "graphic" health warnings "created and supervised" by government bureaucrats.

The plan is an escalation of the federal government's War on Tobacco, and would be imposed in conjunction with an ongoing lawsuit against the major tobacco companies. The lawsuit accuses the companies of fraud and racketeering by concealing the health risks of tobacco.

But the War on Tobacco -- and the proposed new restrictions on tobacco advertising -- rest on the assumption that American adults are too stupid to know that smoking is dangerous, said Dasbach.

"Puritanical politicians and busy-body bureaucrats seem to think they are the parents of a nation of not-too-bright children," he said. "Of course cigarettes are dangerous -- and every adult American has known that for more than 30 years. But it should be up to individuals to weigh the risks of smoking. We don't need the federal government to nag us about our bad habits."

And the ban on advertising is a "free speech issue, plain and simple," said Dasbach.

"Even if you don't like what tobacco companies advertise, we shouldn't give the government the power to ban a whole class of advertising, simply because it disapproves of the legal product being advertised," he said. "The damage to the First Amendment by this kind of Nanny State health fascism will be far greater than any damage to the Marlboro Man."

For all these reasons, even people who don't smoke should oppose this new Justice Department plan, said Dasbach.

"If bureaucrats get away with this, your bad habit will be next," he warned. "Whether you like alcohol, dangerous activities like
motorcycling or hang-gliding, or eating fatty foods, your right to
choose will go up in smoke, too.

"Once the government has the power to regulate personal habits in the name of public health, it's only a matter of time until you become their next target."

 

[alexandraaah]

I'm not so sure, Todd O...and I smoke. It's a filthy, awful habit, but about the article...

If I was driving down the highway and there was a billboard for, "Beautiful Scenery, the next 100 miles!" and in the lower right corner, a tiny little portion of the billboard read, "There is also a nuclear spill and you could die if you drive forward...."

I'd want the little sign to be bigger.

 

[crysede]

Well there are a couple of little flaws in the tobacco companies' arguments here: they are suggesting that the proposed changes aren't needed because people aren't stupid enough to be influenced by color adds and the like to take up smoking - well ya know, advertising works, color add's work even better, we have studies showing this, and they know it too or they wouldn't bother wasting the money on doing it.

And as for the "your bad habit will be next..." fear mongering - the thing is lots of people ride motorcycles without being injured, people can eat high fat without necessarily harming their health (I'll restrain myself from going into another rant about how fatness has been shown to have nothing to do with whether your fit or not, and next to nothing to do with your health), but if you smoke you are necessarily harming your lungs and your immune system - even if you don't wind up dying of lung cancer, breast cancer, or the various other cancers and smoking related diseases it can lead to. If it's ever proven that motorcycling or hang-gliding necessarily causes harm in this manner, then I'm all for limiting adds for motorcycles and hang-gliders too! Anything that cuts down on the number of people choosing to smoke is good in my books (well, anything short of actually banning smoking entirely, banning drugs has never been a good idea).

 

[unclej]

todd..i gave 'em up 5 years ago after 30 years of using and i know from experience that they are an insidious, addictive drug...however, i knew that long ago and chose to keep smoking...i didn't need the government to tell me then and i don't need it now...the government can bull shit the people all they want but if anyone really thinks that they want the tobacco companies to go out of business then they don't have a clue how many billions of dollars the industry pays in taxes and soft contributions...just another effort of the politicians to justify their petty little overpaid existenses...WHAT THEY REALLY OUGHT TO BE DOING IS......steps down off the soap box and looks around sheepishly...

 

[Dixon Carter Lee]

Three are more restrictions on advertising than you realize, for all sorts of products. Free Speech doesn't mean you can put a spread vagina on a billboard or a decapitated dog on a bus. You can't actually drink liquor in an ad. You can't make false claims. You can't advertise a drug until it gets FDA approval. Billboards themselves are banned in some states because they're ugly. A major network is in deep doo-doo with the FCC for "speeding" up their programming to make room for more commericial time, which is a non-no unless you tell the audience first. So, there are plenty of precedents on advertising controls for a variety of health, economic and community standard reasons.

The problem isn't can restrictions be enforced, but just how many? Cigarettes are an addictive drug that kills and forces the States to spend millions on health. They should be outlawed. But, like Al Capone explained to us, people want what they want. The public will understand outlawing heroin, but cigarettes? "It's our choice!" they will say at the same a compelling urge they can't resist grabs them and makes them inhale more poison. So, if we're not going outlaw them, we can at least recognize that they're "bad" and are good candidates for Sin Taxes. and unique restrictions.

In other words, it's entirely fair to say that cigarettes do not belong in the same category as other advertisable products like bananas and Turtle Wax.

It's a perception thing, too. The tobacco companies say "Oh this is too much!" and that they'll be out of business within a year. But it won't seem "too much" n 50 years. In 50 years it will seem quite proper and normal.

If you went back 50 years and told Phillip Morris that you were thinking of passing legislation that would forbid them from sponsoring television shows, putting billboards near schools, create TV commercials, and that they would have to put a label on all their packs telling people that cigarettes are unhealthy, they would scream "Oh this is too much!" and claim that they'd be out of business in a year.

Perception. Fear of change. They'll get over it. If they were smart they would have started getting out of the drug delivery system buisness back in the 70s when the writing was on the wall. What? They can't grow soy beans in Kentucky?

 

[kotori]

These "restrictions" would bring U.S. policy in line with what has been in Britain for a long time. I remember reading imported British auto magazines, and seeing these adverts with no idea what was being advertised--then I found out they were for cigarettes. The people who already smoked (in Britain) recognized the logos. Exactly the claim cigarette companies make, that they are only advertising to people who already smoke to get them to switch brands.

This is so newsworthy. ". . . the Bush administration is running roughshod over civil liberties. . ." Duh.

 

[Thumper]

Hey Todd

How does making cigarette advertising less appealing eliminate the right to choose?

Tobacco advertising is geared towards kids. Simple as that. To believe otherwise is naive. Almost every smoker that is out there started as a teen. If you aren't smoking by 19 chances are you never will start so for tobacco to claim their advertising is adult oriented is ludicrous. Why spend millions targeting a demographic that is only going to shrink? (Adult smoking isn't going to increase...some quit and some die) So logically a tobacco company will target it's advertising to the only demographic group it can influence. The teenager and it's insatiable desire to look cool. If kids would stop smoking and refrain from picking up the habit the tobacco companies would be out of business in two decades....