Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utai!ubc-vision!alberta!cdshaw
From: cdshaw@alberta.UUCP (Chris Shaw)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: tobacco advertising ban
Message-ID: <1053@pembina.UUCP>
Date: 28 Jan 88 06:34:33 GMT
References: <5929@utcsri.UUCP> <1351@looking.UUCP>
Reply-To: cdshaw@pembina.UUCP (Chris Shaw)
Distribution: can
Organization: U. of Alberta, Edmonton, AB
Lines: 51

In article <1351@looking.UUCP> brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes:
>To ban people from promoting their product or viewpoint scares me.
>What would be more reasonable would be "truth-in-advertising" laws
>on dangerous, addictive products like tobacco.  The small warning stickers
>in the ads aren't enough.  Perhaps they could require all cigarette ads to
>picture diseased lungs, cancer death statistics or other such things
>in proportion to these effects.
>
>Smoking is dangerous and offensive.  Make the ads say that.  But don't ban
>them.
>-- 
>Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473


I have difficulty seeing the difference. On one hand, we have the
removal of the right for tobacco companies to say anything about their
product.  On the other hand, Brad wants to TELL them what to say about
their product.

Which is worse?

It's one of those knotty facts that the truth-in-advertising laws
simply can't be enforced to the desireable level. Tobacco companies
deny that smoking causes cancer. If pressed, one could imagine tobacco
companies citing examples of people who smoke who have lived to a ripe
old age, thereby refuting the smoking=death conclusion.

The problem is, of course, that smoking != death. Smoking simply leads
to poorer health, and in some/most cases causes cancer.

So then we come to the concept of banning advertising. No tobacco
company can equivocate over the meaning of such legislation, so there's
no legitimate grounds for lawbreaking on this point.

But then Brad says "..product or viewpoint..". Sorry Brad, products are
not viewpoints. Products are not ideas, and products are not policies.
Products are products. The reason why this particular product can't be
banned outright is that there are too many voters who make their living
on it. These voters have a very powerful lobby.

The strategy here is clear. Squeeze the tobacco lobby dry. Kill them
slowly.  It seems only fitting.

Someone else said: "pay the farmers to change over". It won't work.
Tobacco is an extremely profitable cash crop. Would you take money to
go to secretarial school? Not likely. These people have been living of
the avails of a product that kills long enough. Let them suffer.
-- 
Chris Shaw    cdshaw@alberta.UUCP (via watmath, ihnp4 or ubc-vision)
University of Alberta
CatchPhrase: Bogus as HELL !