Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!zds-ux!behm
From: behm@zds-ux.UUCP (Brett Behm)
Newsgroups: alt.drugs
Subject: Re: NBWA supports the war on drugs
Message-ID: <110@zds-ux.UUCP>
Date: 17 Jan 90 16:52:00 GMT
References: <9001160300.AA17533@cds709.noble.com>
Organization: Zenith Data Systems
Lines: 23

In article <9001160300.AA17533@cds709.noble.com>, pete@cadence.com (Pete Zakel) writes:
* [In Summary] That cigarette companies lie in their advertising, they are
* targeting ads at young smokers, warning labels are unreadably small, deny
* that smoking causes any health risks, caused Japan to smoke more, and 
* finally " The tobacco industry can spend far more money on propoganda than 
* the US can on tobacco education.  In a head to head battle, guess which 
* one wins."

But guess what Pete, according to the Wall Street Journal (Can't remember
the date, but it was posted here) that domestic cigarette consumption has been 
declining at about 3% a year - kind-of blows the advertising/consumption
correlation theory.  Does anyone really need to read a label to figure out
smoking is bad for your health?  

So what if their advertising is misleading -
like advertising of any product is entirely factual.  If someone has
not yet figured out that smoking is harmful, then they have more to fear
than what effects smoking may cause them.  My theory is that "social
trends" among peers dictate consumption.  This is equally as unsupported
with data as the advertising theory is, so with that in mind, I will
not develop any cause/effect relationships.

Brett Behm