Tobacco Advertising Case Study

1. In favor of ban on tobacco advertising:

The ban of tobacco advertising is justified because it is the moral responsibility of the government to protect the welfare of its citizens as tobacco is known to cause serious health issues and death. The number of deaths due to illnesses caused by tobacco has been exponentially rising. According to WHO, there were 4,023 deaths in 1998 and the number is estimated to rise to 8.4 million deaths in 2020 and 10 million in 2030. Advertising should also be banned so as not to influence the youth to start smoking. The ban was not something new because there were international precedents. Countries like France, Finland and Norway had already implemented similar bans. The government had the right

Opposition to the ban of tobacco advertising in India

Banning tobacco advertising was infringing on the people’s rights of choice and advocates of free choice stated that this amounted to unnecessary intrusion by the state in the private lives of its citizens. Incidentally, the organized sector which mainly produced tobacco products accounted for only 16% of the market share while 84% comprised of other products like 'beedi, ' and 'ghutkas so the ban would have a negligible impact on the overall sales. Also if the government already legalized the production of tobacco products, it should be legal to advertise the same.

Another negative impact was that the ban would reduce the awareness of consumers to distinguish between products of differing quality and would slow down the progression of consumer up the scale from harmful tobacco consumption (like ghutka, zarda etc) to more refined forms. The ban would lead to a surge in surrogate advertising which could defeat the purpose of the action. It was not wise to mess with the tobacco Industry as it was a major contributor to the State Exchequer, (In the Year 2000-01 it contributed about Rs. 8000 crores in excise revenue) which was extremely important, given the financial crunch which the government

As well as imposing a ban on tobacco advertising, India needed to ban foreign media, TV and magazines found locally that carried tobacco advertisements; for instance Marlboro Formula I which was very popular with the affluent youth.

One more study to reinforce the benefits of tobacco banning was conducted in 1992 by the Department of Health (DOH), which UK reviewed various forms of evidence to assess whether tobacco advertising affected the aggregate demand for tobacco products in Norway, Finland, Canada and New Zealand. In each case, the banning of advertising was followed by a fall in smoking. In 1997, in a similar study for the International Union against Cancer, the available data in the same four countries was examined. It was found that per capita consumption of cigarettes (15 years +) had dropped between 14 and 37 % after the implementation of the