If you care about your health, you need to go buy a pack of cigarettes RIGHT NOW. Buy a pack of Viceroys if you care to be healthy- your dentist recommends them! How could you say no to a cigarette; a doctor told you to buy them, they have to be good for you! The Federal Trade Commission Act prohibits unfair or deceptive advertising in any medium. Advertisements must not mislead consumers or leave out relevant information. Before this Act came about, cigarette companies used to advertise their products through the most ridiculous and untrue promotional practices, deceiving the public into thinking they were healthy. I want to focus on that word- deception. Cigarette ads were focused solely on deception, whether or not the companies acknowledged that or not. They wanted to get to the top and outsell their competitors. Through this, their advertising practices became deceptive. In 1937, the Philip Morris company claimed doctors had claimed "when smokers changed to Philip Morris, every case of irritation cleared completely and definitely improved." These doctors had been sponsored by the cigarette company. Claims such as these were made constantly by the many cigarette companies, most with fake or stretched information to back up these allegations. The FDA made the usage of advertising or promotional claims that suggest the product us safer to use, such as- "Safe Smoke Filter" and "Less Toxic". Cigarette companies used all of these tactics and more to promote their products. At the height of cigarette advertisements, a link between smoking and lung cancer had not yet be made. To make their ads seem more legitimate, cigarette companies would use doctors to make claims about cigarettes. This was norm back in the 1900s- healthcare professionals were used for advertising purposes of tobacco. Thankfully, laws were passed in order to prohibit the falsities of this type of promotion.
Cigarettes used to be sold without a warning label and were promoted as healthy, or sexy, or fun. Now, since the 1960s when Congress signed the Cigarette Smoking Act, cigarette manufacturers must place warning labels on their products that state "Cigarette Smoking May be Hazardous to Your Health." On top of the requirement of labels on cigarettes, in 1970, President Richard Nixon signed legislation officially banning cigarette ads on television and radio.
Corrective ads are now ran, as cigarette companies have been forced to come clean with the truth about their products. They began running these ads in newspapers as well as on national television. The ads are to inform Americans of the truth about smoking in order to correct decades of misinformation that these companies used to spread willingly and happily to the public. These advertisements came from a 2006 ruling by U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler.
In 2006, major cigarette manufacturers were found guilty of breaking civil racketeering laws by deceptively marketing to children, and lying to the public about the dangers of smoking. They were forced to learn from their past and run corrective ads, place warning labels on their products, and stop the usage of promotional claims. Following this lawsuit, I think most people though that we had moved past this crisis; we as a nation are smarter now and understand the health hazards of this pastime and understand the outrageousness of these former ads that used to grace the public. Sadly, this was not the case.
Vaping seemed like an incredible alternative to smoking cigarettes, get the buzz without having to inhale the tobacco smoke. Unfortunately, these products reached the generation they could have had the most negative impact on. These companies had to have known this would happen, right? Was this the goal? These companies used "fun" flavors to make vaping itself more fun. In 2009, any flavors other than menthol cigarettes were made illegal, but vaping companies were able to mass produce flavored nicotine products. JUUL has been one of the worst offenders when it comes to the promotion of their products. Even as JUUL claims that they help smokers make the healthier switch to vaping, big tobacco now owns JUUL. Alitra
(formerly Philip Morris) owns a reported 35% of JUUL. One of the biggest misinformed claims that these vaping companies promote is that their products could be used without negative health consequences. These products have not been around long enough to know about the health consequences. Cigarettes were promoted before the negative health effects were known, we should take a page from history and wait until their is knowledge of the long term effects of vaping before they are promoted and completely safe. The cycle of nicotine addiction is just repeating itself and the vaping advertisement laws and lawsuits are following in suit. History truly repeats itself.
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