Antismoking Advertisement

Research has proven that 5.4 million deaths a year are caused by smoking. Whether it's the smoker or the person effected by second hand smoke, the old or the young, millions die by the quick light of a cigarette. Advertisement from the tobacco company increase the death poles as they increase the sales of their products; however there is hope to end this madness. Antismoking ads have been decreasing these numbers since they were introduced to the point it had "seemed as if a whole new era [had began]."(Kittleson/ "government and tobacco"). With this said, although some research has shown that antismoking advertisement increases teen smokers, they shouldn't be banned until' more research can be done.

When introduced to the United States, antismoking advertisements goal was to get people to either not smoke or quit smoking. In order to accomplish this goal the ads had two directions, "encourage people to never start smoking [and] encourage people who [do] smoke to stop"("antismoking efforts"). This means that antismoking ads were never intended to start a debate with tobacco companies; however they were made to help people stay away from tobaccos addicting desires. Shortly after the first antismoking advertisements were introduced people began to oppose and ban what antismoking ads were doing, by saying that they didn't help anything. A "year after the [antismoking] ads stopped, consumption of cigarettes rose."(Kittleson/ "advertising and smoking"). Shortly after this drastic increase of smoking the anti ads were brought back in order to decrease the smoking rate once again. Still some changes were made to the ads along with more studies on the ads to figure out the best way to present the ads.

After the reinstatement of antismoking ads they started to "set off some of the major arguments in tobacco control"(Kittleson/ "advertising and smoking"). The ads did this not by trashing the tobacco companies, but by informing the public about the truth of the harms of smoking and second hand smoke. For example the number of deaths each year because of smoking, how the risk of cancer is increased for those who are just around smokers, etc. This has caused many conflicts and debates with smokers and nonsmokers (young and old) and the rights of both groups. These conflicts soon led to workplaces "becoming entirely smoke-free and... [designated] outdoor smoking areas."(Kahn). These changes continuously make heather environments for those who choose not to smoke along with less secondhand smoke related deaths. The antismoking ads might not make every smoker quit or every nonsmoker not start; however the actions they are creating may cause better environments for all.

With this said antismoking ads seem to be a wonderful new movement; still they might also led to more harm than good. In 1998 two antismoking ads were aimed at teens and instead of the ads keeping the teens from smoking they had the "opposite effect [and] encouraged teens to smoke."(Ferreiro). Researches believe this could be caused by two reasons. The first is the push and pull effect: the more a adult pushes a teen not to do something the more they pull to do it. And the second is the fact that anti ads never "changed teens' perception that smoking makes them look cool and helps them fit in"(Ferreiro). After all of this was figured out the profits of antismoking ads went down in 2002 and "were being diverted to purposes other than [antismoking ads]."(Kittleson/ "government and tobacco"). After seeing the lack of support the government gave them, the public had less appreciation for antismoking advertisement.

The fact is that antismoking ads undoubtedly do help keep decrease the amount of smokers; however some don't help but cause people to smoke and since there are so many antismoking ads its " difficult to isolate which [ones] are working."(Roskos-Ewoldsen). The variety of antismoking , mostly towards teens, are all over the place in what they aim towards. Some show how smoking causes diseases in the future, some show how smoking harms others, etc. It's been hard for studies to show which of these are working; however the ads that aren't working are easy to spot. For example studies found that "knowing that smoking may lead [teens] to [diseases] a long time in the future does not seem to deter teens from smoking." (Ferreiro). The reasoning behind this is that teen don't want to hear authority tell them not to smoke. In fact for some teens