ument is much used by the tobacco industry and their advertisers to defend tobacco advertising. If tobacco can be legally grown, processed and sold, why should it not be legally promoted?
The argument does two things: it makes advertising bans on tobacco products appear unreasonable and unprincipled, and throws back the challenge that if tobacco smoking is so harmful, why is it not banned?
The argument plays on an historical accident. Tobacco is only legal today because it was introduced to the community on a wide scale decades before its health dangers were understood. If tobacco smoking were discovered tomorrow, it is unlikely that any responsible government anywhere in the world would allow tobacco to be manufactured, much less advertised, but legislators cannot now outlaw a product to which a quarter of the adult population is addicted, and no-one would seriously suggest that they should. The product may be well be sold legally under certain circumstances, but it cannot be ethical to promote it when it causes so much preventable death and disability. Banning its promotion seems a reasonable middle ground.(127)
In Australia there are already products which are legally available for sale, many without prescription (mainly drugs and therapeutic goods, for example insulin and Ventolin), but which are illegal to advertise to the general public. (There are also products and services which may legally be advertised, but for which some publications refuse to carry advertising as a matter of principle: for example, 'escort services' and brothels).(166)
The argument also ignores the fact that tobacco is not sold freely in Australia. In Tasmania and Queensland (legislation pending for an increase to 18 years) it is illegal to sell tobacco to children under 16 years of age, and in Western Australia, the ACT, Victoria, New South Wales and Northern Territory, the minimum age is 18. However, all children are exposed to tobacco advertising in the same ways as are adults.
The tobacco industry frequently refers to 'freedom' when arguing for the right to advertise without restriction. The basis of this argument is that information about tobacco products should be freely available to the public, who can then make their decision whether or not to smoke. People who oppose this argument are apparently, therefore, enemies of freedom.
This argument does not take into account that:
ð The vast majority of people who smoke begin in their teens or as children. Most are confirmed users by the age of 15 or 16(176): they become users long before society accepts that they are mature enough to make decisions about issues like voting and driving. There is no guarantee that they will make a responsible decision about the use of an addictive, dangerous and costly drug.
ð It is reasonable for society, and especially children, to be free of advertising pressure to take up or use a dangerous drug of addiction.
ð Tobacco advertising is not informative for the consumer in any case. Tobacco advertisements seldom give information on price and do not include specific information on the toxic nature of the product.
Tobacco promotion in all its forms was banned in Canada during 1988. During the passage of legislation the Canadian Minister for Health, Jake Epp, commented that:
The responsible exercise of freedom of speech does not include the freedom to portray a lethal product as glamorous and socially acceptable.(166)
Another industry argument is that once tobacco advertising is banned, what will be next? Cars, sugar, alcohol, lollies? All of these things can cause harm; they will be the next target of an intrusive and over-regulating government -- the 'nanny state'.
The argument overlooks the fact that there is no threshold of safe use for tobacco products, whereas the other products listed are dangerous only when abused.
On balance, there is no doubt that advertising has some effect on influencing uptake of smoking among children, and on this basis, should be discontinued. The most compelling industry defence of advertising -- that to deny them the 'right' of 