Persuasive Essay: Promoting Smoking Should Be Banned

1060 Words3 Pages

Promoting Smoking Should Be Banned
Advertisements involving smoking need to be prohibited. Kids and teens that are the most impressionable and easily influenced should not be targeted by the tobacco industry. "Smoking is the primary preventable cause of death, and yet 3000 adolescents become smokers each day" (Jason). Cigarette promotions make smoking appear harmless and cool and have led to a lifelong habit beginning before the age of 18. The advertisements on quitting smoking and how harmful it is for the individual may be effective for older viewers, however many teens and kids are drawn to cigarettes even more because adults are saying it is a bad thing it appeals to their “bad boy/girl” ideal. Many might argue that forbidding a company
Anti-smoking advertising does not promote smoking, but will it have the effect they want. The campaign against smoking is spending millions of dollars to show smoking ages the smoker (adds 10 Years), vivid images of smokers fighting cancer, and surviving heart disease. The hope is that smokers will see this and want to stop or teens will see it and never even try smoking. Even negative advertising still gives acknowledgement and attention to smoking and ought to be banned. Teens may see these ads as adults trying to keep them from doing something cool and may only want to try it more. The teens and adults who see the ads as a scary reminder of the dangers of smoking are probably the ones intelligent enough to never start smoking in the first place. A number of people might agree with the tobacco industry that this strict stance infringes on the first
The First Amendment is written to protect the United States citizens ' right to freedom of speech and freedom of the press. It is constitutional to stop one industry from utilizing the right to put ads in magazines, posters, and other means of advertisement. If the right of an industry to advertise and promote their product is violated where will it stop. This overreaching of power would jeopardize the very democracy that founded the United States. Anti-smokers need to be looking at the individual to be accountable for their own actions and not placing all blame on the cigarette companies and their right to promote their

Open Document