john@ur-tut.UUCP (John Gurian) (12/13/85)
I'm sure that people have been reading about the AMA's drive to ban cigarette advertising in periodicals. I have a feeling that they're out to raise consciousness as much as anything else (supposedly they're trying to get scenes with people smoking banned from movies, which seems pretty silly), but I think it's a long-overdue effort, if only for publicity. It does raise some sticky questions. First amendment rights on one hand must be balanced out against the fact that the tobacco companies use the threat of withdrawal of advertising revenues to keep periodicals from printing articles linking tobacco with health problems. Any ideas/opinions on this? -- John Gurian -- University of Rochester School of Medicine
jtyd@ur-tut.UUCP (Ty Dibble) (12/14/85)
I don't see any first amendment problems. It seems to fall within the off-limits area of advertising a service which could be described as "helping people kill themselves" or "may we poison your child". I am not trying to be inflammatory, only to get you to see a different perspective. Most smokers think that they should be allowed their "pleasure" even though it can be demonstrated that it is harmful to them. They feel that it is not unfair to make everyone pay for their medical expenses through higher insurance costs. They believe that even though their habit is offensive to many and harmful to those who are allergic or who have trouble breathing, that their right to harm themselves and make everyone else pay for it is somehow more important than everyone elses right to breathe clean air, etc. I believe that most smokers would find it appropriate to make it illegal to sell harmful drugs to people. I think they would find it absurd that it would be legal to advertise such a service. Unfortuneately they either do not see that this is the same or if they see it they want to find a way around it. I think the issue of advertising dollars is a red herring. It made no particular difference to TV and should not make much difference elsewhere. The big difference would be in the amount of profit since a great part of the cost of a pack of cigarettes is advertising. If the tobacco companies put the money they currently spend on advertising into medical care for cancer victims, it would show responsible citizenship. If the money the government pays to tobacco farmers was converted to medical care over 2-3 years it would give the farmers a chance to change jobs. But it still would not cover all the medical costs.
rentsch@unc.UUCP (Tim Rentsch) (12/16/85)
While we're on the subject, how about if all cigarette advertisement (and chewing tobacco advertisement!) were simply made illegal? If people want to smoke, that's their business; but if the tobacco industry want other people to smoke, that's everyone's business. My contention is that advertising is behavior modification, not statement of views, and therefore is not protected under the bill of rights. In support for this, note that TV cigarette ads were banned. Why not just make it all tobacco ads?
dsi@unccvax.UUCP (Dataspan Inc) (12/16/85)
> While we're on the subject, how about if all cigarette advertisement > (and chewing tobacco advertisement!) were simply made illegal? If > people want to smoke, that's their business; but if the tobacco > industry want other people to smoke, that's everyone's business. > > My contention is that advertising is behavior modification, not > statement of views, and therefore is not protected under the bill of > rights. In support for this, note that TV cigarette ads were > banned. Why not just make it all tobacco ads? For the record (and I do not smoke, incidentally, nor use tobacco products) TV advertising was not "banned" because it was behaviour modification. It was a compromise arrived at by the television broadcasters and the FCC. The anti-tobacco lobbies were arriving at the great Judgement Day in a hurry in an attempt to apply the Fairness Doctrine (y'know, equal time for opposing viewpoints when broadcasts of a controversial issue occur) to sales of anti-cigarette commercials. They were willing to *pay* for the spots, they just wanted equal avails for the cigarette advertising carried at the time. I object to the banning of tobacco advertising on TV because it treats the Fifth Estate as a second-class citizen with respect to the First Amendment. Fortunately, Chuck Ferris and his gang are rapidly changing (his words) the FCC from the Federal Cannot Commission to the FNPC - the Federal No Problem Commission. When the rest of the tobacco ads go, then go the beer and wine ads, and then everything else which could possibly get trashed as a bad influence will. If one is going to ban "advertising", please ban it across the board, but don't single out broadcasters for a problem they didn't create or are primarily responsible for. Someday (hopefully, within my lifetime) the bloody Fairness Doctrine will go away, and we broadcasters will be treated like responsible members of society. The Charlotte Obscurer can publish all the pro-life or pro-choice or pro-tobacco or anti-tobacco stuff it wants, but when my TV station broadcasts "Cagney and Lacey" or shows a young person smoking a cigarette in a movie, we've had it. Frankly, I wish the landscape weren't cluttered with cigarette ads on billboards..... Yours for a free Fifth Estate David Anthony DataSpan, Inc/Long Pine Broadcasting, Inc
gordon@cae780.UUCP (Brian Gordon) (12/16/85)
In article <748@unc.unc.UUCP> rentsch@unc.UUCP (Tim Rentsch) writes: >While we're on the subject, how about if all cigarette advertisement >(and chewing tobacco advertisement!) were simply made illegal? If >people want to smoke, that's their business; but if the tobacco >industry want other people to smoke, that's everyone's business. > >My contention is that advertising is behavior modification, not >statement of views, and therefore is not protected under the bill of >rights. In support for this, note that TV cigarette ads were >banned. Why not just make it all tobacco ads? Unless I *really* forgot the mechanism, TV cigarette ads were *not* banned - the industry "voluntarily" stopped showing them -- precisely so they couldn't be banned and become a precedent for banning other forms of advertising ... FROM: Brian G. Gordon, CAE Systems Division of Tektronix, Inc. UUCP: tektronix!teklds!cae780!gordon {ihnp4, decvax!decwrl}!amdcad!cae780!gordon {nsc, hplabs, resonex, qubix, leadsv}!cae780!gordon USNAIL: 5302 Betsy Ross Drive, Santa Clara, CA 95054 AT&T: (408)727-1234
broder@magic.ARPA (12/17/85)
In article <748@unc.unc.UUCP> rentsch@unc.UUCP (Tim Rentsch) writes: > >While we're on the subject, how about if all cigarette advertisement >(and chewing tobacco advertisement!) were simply made illegal? If >people want to smoke, that's their business; but if the tobacco >industry want other people to smoke, that's everyone's business. > >My contention is that advertising is behavior modification, not >statement of views, and therefore is not protected under the bill of >rights. In support for this, note that TV cigarette ads were >banned. Why not just make it all tobacco ads? Yes, yes, ban them! Also liquor ads - clearly, alcohol is bad for your liver, motorcycle ads, (terrible accident rate), and in fact all car ads also (pollution, accidents, etc.) In fact let's ban all advertising, because all advertising is trying to generate behavior modification, thus not protected! Last time I checked, religious preachers also were trying to modify behavior! Ban'em now! (Do I need :-)?) What AMA should do, in my opinion, is not to push for clearly unconstitutional legislation, but for higher taxes on cigarettes to be used for paying for negative publicity. Such taxes can be justified by the cost of smoking incurred by the society. I don't know whether this is within the scope of net.med, but I would like to find good estimate of such costs. Clearly, smokers cost substantially more in health care costs, but substantially less in social security and old age benefits. The distribution of smokers across economical strata is unequal, which also should be taken into account. Other factors are taxes on cigarettes, price supports for tobacco growers, and higher insurance rates. By the way, TV ads for tobacco were never banned - they do not exist grace to an industry agreement that the justice department had the good sense not to try to break under anti-trust laws.
mpr@mb2c.UUCP (Mark Reina) (12/17/85)
> In article <748@unc.unc.UUCP> rentsch@unc.UUCP (Tim Rentsch) writes: > >While we're on the subject, how about if all cigarette advertisement > >(and chewing tobacco advertisement!) were simply made illegal? If > >people want to smoke, that's their business; but if the tobacco > >industry want other people to smoke, that's everyone's business. > > > >My contention is that advertising is behavior modification, not > >statement of views, and therefore is not protected under the bill of > >rights. In support for this, note that TV cigarette ads were > >banned. Why not just make it all tobacco ads? > It is my understanding that government can place many time, place and manner restrictions on commercial speech (where it may not be possible to do the same with political speech). The basic idea is that commercial speech is hardier than political speech and can, therefore, withstand more regulation yet still keep bouncing back. The current Constitutional theory has nothing to do with behavior modification. However, this might be a novel new approach to litigate a claim. (Just don't mortgage the house on this one.) After all, remember Louis Brandeis and the famous "Sick Chicken" case. Mark Reina
rjb@akgua.UUCP (R.J. Brown [Bob]) (12/17/85)
First, I am an ex-smoker (11.5 years)
How do we compare the smoker who loads extra costs on society
with the alcoholic or the overweight person ? All these ills
are, in many cases, self induced. I don't think trying to
punish smokers (other than social isolation) will in the long
run be effective.
Bob Brown {...ihnp4!akgua!rjb}carl@aoa.UUCP (Carl Witthoft) (12/17/85)
In article <291@ur-tut.UUCP> john@ur-tut.UUCP (John Gurian) writes: >I'm sure that people have been reading about the AMA's drive to ban cigarette >advertising in periodicals. I have a feeling that they're out to raise >First amendment rights on one hand must be balanced out against the fact that >the tobacco companies use the threat of withdrawal of advertising revenues >to keep periodicals from printing articles linking tobacco with health problems. >Any ideas/opinions on this? Hohohohohoho..... And what about N-th amendment rights guaranteeing tobacco companies/farmers mega-subsidies from the feds so long as Helms is alive? (0.01 of a :=) ) The tobacco companies say they should be allowed to advertise anything it's legal to sell. In many states, this hardly fits with limits on service (MD, JD ) advertising bans, for one example. One other amusing point: at the AMA convention, guess which contingent of MD's voted AGAINST these proposed bans? The guys from Carolina of course. Darwin's Dad ( Carl Witthoft @ Adaptive Optics Associates) {decvax,linus,ihnp4,ima,wjh12,wanginst}!bbncca!aoa!carl 54 CambridgePark Drive, Cambridge,MA 02140 617-864-0201x356 "Selmer MarkVI, Otto Link 5*, and VanDoren Java Cut."
wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) (12/17/85)
An interesting side-note about this. In the McNeil-Lehrer news program coverage of this issue, they had a tobacco-industry-group representative and a medical-group representative. The tobacco man mentioned that, in countries where cigarette advertising was simply completely banned (some Scandinavian countries, etc.) the per-capita consumption of tobacco went UP. The obvious response to this (and I yelled it at the TV but the fool doing the interviewing did not ask this simple and obvious question [have you noticed they *never* ask the right questions?] :-) was to ask, "Well, then, why not stop advertising right now, voluntarily, and save all that money, and watch your sales rise anyway and just glory in your glut of profits?" Anyway, later discussion established that advertising does not (on the whole) cause non-smokers to become smokers; it just changes brand loyalties amongst those who are already smokers. Marlboro was given as an example -- the "Marlboro Man" ad campaign is credited with moving that brand from just about nowhere to become the biggest-selling brand of cigarettes now. So, again an obvious solution: a tobacco monopoly! If all the different brands were really all products of the same company, there would be NO reason for advertising, because it wouldn't pay the cartel anything to motivate people to switch between different brands, if they were all coming out of the great tobacco trust! So they would stop advertising as soon as they realized this, with no need for special first-amendment-limiting legislation. All we need do is cancel the existing anti-trust laws insofar as they refer to tobacco companies. The current merger mania will do the rest, and shortly all the tobacco companies will be one big smoking giant... This will also make collecting tobacco taxes easier. Tobacco advertising will disappear shortly thereafter; as smokers die off and fewer and fewer people start smoking, they will become less and less of a burden on medical facilities and social behavior and will dwindle away to a memory. Meanwhile, as its customers disappear, the great tobacco trust will gradually shrink down to about the equivalent of the current kumquat-marketing association. Industrial and social evolution! [Methinks this is the third or so Nobel-prize-winning-quality-but-yet-cheap- and-simple idea I've posted to the net this year. Aren't you-all lucky?!] Regards, Will
caf@omen.UUCP (Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX) (12/18/85)
In article <295@ur-tut.UUCP> jtyd@ur-tut.UUCP (Ty Dibble) writes: >I don't see any first amendment problems. It seems to fall within ... >If the tobacco companies put the money they currently spend on advertising >into medical care for cancer victims, it would show responsible citizenship. >If the money the government pays to tobacco farmers was converted to >medical care over 2-3 years it would give the farmers a chance to change >jobs. But it still would not cover all the medical costs. The AMA might be better advised to make certain that cigarette victims are able to recover damages from the tobacco industry. If the victims (and their insurance companies) were able to recover dmamages, the cigarette companies might have less money to allocate to advertising designed to enlist new addicts. -- Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX ...!tektronix!reed!omen!caf CIS:70715,131 Omen Technology Inc 17505-V NW Sauvie Island Road Portland OR 97231 Home of Professional-YAM, the most powerful COMM program for the IBM PC Voice: 503-621-3406 TeleGodzilla: 621-3746 (Hit CRs) L.sys entry for omen: omen Any ACU 1200 1-503-621-3746 se:--se: link ord: Giznoid in:--in: uucp
zeus@aero.ARPA (Dave Suess) (12/19/85)
In article <748@unc.unc.UUCP> rentsch@unc.UUCP (Tim Rentsch) writes: >rights. In support for this, note that TV cigarette ads were >banned. Why not just make it all tobacco ads? The way I remembered it, the tobacco companies "voluntarily" withdrew all TV advertising, in return for the gov't and cancer societies pulling back their anti-smoking ads. Legislation (or was it just FCC regs?) followed some time after that, when it was fairly moot. Perhaps the AMA could use some $$ to run ads next to every cig ad, or the insurance co's could promise to replace any lost advertising revenues. Let 'em ALL advertise: even the Fed gov't! Then, no arguments on restricting 1st amend. rights, no lost bucks, just more info (and from more sources, not just the Tobac Inst.)! Someone please correct me if I err, but that's the way I remember it: the tobacco companies voluntarily withdrew TV advertising after sales were hurt badly by the anti-smoking ads. Dave Suess, zeus@aerospace.arpa or @aero.UUCP
john@cisden.UUCP (John Woolley) (12/19/85)
In article <748@unc.unc.UUCP> rentsch@unc.UUCP (Tim Rentsch) writes: >My contention is that advertising is behavior modification, not >statement of views, and therefore is not protected under the bill of >rights. I would sure hate to see the courts start holding that some speech is "behavior modification", and therefore not protected. The whole point of any sort of persuasion is to modify behaviour. It's not as if a commercial forced you to smoke. (Or drink.) -- Peace and Good!, Fr. John Woolley "The heart has its reasons that the mind does not know." -- Blaise Pascal
rs55611@ihuxk.UUCP (Robert E. Schleicher) (12/19/85)
Although I'm definitely not a big ACLU supporter, I'd like to see tham (oops, them) take a stand against the banning of cigarette ads. Now, if newspapers and magazines wanted to cut out cigarette ads, that would be OK, but they don't want to do this (at least the majority don't), for obvious business reasons. I really don't think there can be any legal justification for preventing tobacco companies and newspaper/magazine owners from agreeing to run the ads. The idea that ads are somehow different from other forms of speech (that they're trying to mold opinion, rather than inform) does not offer any practical solutions, as the same argument can be made against other forms of speech, such as editorials, political campaigns, etc., that everyone agrees should be protected as free speech. In my view, if people are looking for legal solutions to smoking, they should first turn to the federal subsidization of tobacco prices. This is a classic example of a program that should have been killed long ago, but survives due to the influence-peddling of several powerful Congress-people and Senators. Bob Schleicher ihuxk!rs55611
rs55611@ihuxk.UUCP (Robert E. Schleicher) (12/19/85)
> I don't see any first amendment problems. It seems to fall within > the off-limits area of advertising a service which could be described as > "helping people kill themselves" or "may we poison your child". > I am not trying to be inflammatory, only to get you to see a different > perspective. > > Most smokers think that they should be allowed their "pleasure" even though > it can be demonstrated that it is harmful to them. They feel that it is > not unfair to make everyone pay for their medical expenses through higher > insurance costs. They believe that even though their habit is offensive Although I'm a non-smoker, and often am bothered by smoke in public places, etc., I disagree with the contention that it is OK to ban an activity (or the advertising of it) because it's harmful, even if there is a high social cost. It IS OK to try to persuade people to stop doing it, or to even offer incentives to stop. I also feel that it's not smokers' problem if everyone else's insurance has to be higher to pay for the smokers' medical problems. We non-smokers are not forced to obtain our insurance from companies that don't offer premium reductions for non-smokers. You might argue that insurance companies do not accurately reflect the true cost of smoking in their premiums, but that's NOT the fault of smokers, and not (in my view) any reason to ban smoking, or its advertising. You could draw analogies to other bad health habits. Should be ban high-cholesterol diets, saturated fats, etc. since these cause heart trouble, as well as obesity, which both result in higher medical costs? I don't think so. As for the issue of smoke hurting others in public places, I support no smoking rules as being up to the individual business establishment (ie., fine to have them, but shouldn't force a busniess to establish them). In government buildings, it probably does make sense to ban smoking. > If the money the government pays to tobacco farmers was converted to > medical care over 2-3 years it would give the farmers a chance to change > jobs. But it still would not cover all the medical costs. Hear,hear! I agree completely that the subsidization of tobacco prices needs to be phased out as quickly as possible. Bob Schleicher ihuxk!rs55611 *** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE ***