Why Big Tobacco Should Welcome the End of Advertising
The tobacco marketing wars appear to be entering their endgame as legislators and health advocates demand ever more restrictions on cigarette advertising and consumption. There can be only two possible outcomes:
- A complete ban on any kind of tobacco promotion.
- A complete prohibition on the sale of tobacco.
The former, however, presents an interesting scenario for tobacco: It offers a world in which companies could be free to sell their product while claiming, legitimately, that they are in no way unfairly manipulating consumers into their addictions.
A new study in the journal Pediatrics argues that teens who visit convenience stores twice a week are three times as likely to smoke than those who only enter delis and gas stations twice a month. Unsurprisingly, health advocates regard the mere availability of cigarettes as sinister. Seth Ammerman, a professor of adolescent medicine at Stanford, said:
One particularly nefarious aspect of advertising at convenience stores is it really normalizes the product. What do you buy there? Cigarettes, but also soup, laundry detergent, soda, cat food -- normal, common things. So advertising there really gives the impression that smoking is normal ... Tobacco companies understand this. They're not stupid.Among other moves, Big Tobacco faces various potential bans on promotion at festivals and concerts, and on any promotion using music. Buffalo, N.Y., is attempting to create a blanket ban on virtually all cigarette advertising within its city limits.
The problem for those who'd be happy to see The End of Tobacco Advertising is that according to the U.S. Supreme Court (in Lorillard Tobacco Co. v. Reilly), the Constitution offers a Catch-22 regarding cigarettes: As long as it's legal to sell tobacco, tobacco companies have First Amendment rights to advertise their products. States can restrict advertising but probably not ban it completely. Therefore, to take the logic to its extreme, you can only reach a complete ban on cigarette advertising if you also have a complete prohibition on cigarette sales. We know that prohibition doesn't work, so we know that won't happen.
Thus Big Tobacco appears to have maneuvered its opponents into what in chess would be termed "perpetual check" -- a state in which one player traps the other into a losing position but is nonetheless unable to play the final winning move.
Imagine tobacco companies gave up all their rights to advertise. At that point, who is to blame for smoking? Not tobacco companies. That ought to suit Big Tobacco quite nicely, especially as the decline in smoking appears to be slowing.
Related: