Argument Analysis: The Tobacco Questions

The Tobacco Question

People have been fighting big businesses and industries that manufacture and distribute tobacco for decades. However, there has always been so much conflict over the matter on whether or not the government should get involved. For many people, smoking is a part of life, and so involvement in that area is violating their basic rights. They know the risks and are willing to take them. Activists try to skirt around this issue by lobbying governments to ban the advertisement of these products as it would not directly attack another’s right to smoke. In India, the call for this ban is strong. Many valid arguments have been offered from both sides of the conflict in the hopes of protecting their beliefs.

In India, citizens and health organizations alike have spoken out in support of the ban. They believe that it is in the overall interest of population to do away with tobacco advertisements. One of their arguments reminds people that the whole world has bans on drugs because of their negative effects. How is tobacco any different? It causes millions of deaths each year because of the diseases and illness a person can contract from continued use and exposure. They also claim that the advertisement of the product creates an interest in the minds of young children and adolescents which leads them to pick up the habit. The animated camel, for instance, used

The International Union against Cancer reported that a study of four countries with the ban reduced consumption between 14 and 37% within a 15-year examination. On another note, analysts show that although the industry is indirectly and directly linked to 26 million jobs, the ban wouldn’t necessarily affect the employment. If consumers stopped putting so much money into smoking and instead into goods and services, more jobs would be created in that area (Morris,