Teens reacting to old cigarette ads and comparing them to current ad for e-cigarettes.

Click here to see teens reacting to old cigarette ads

Cigarette commercials have been banned from TV since the 1970's. While the first health reports of harm from smoking came in the early 1950's, it wasn't until 1964 with the Surgeon General's Report on Smoking that it became widely known that smoking caused lung cancer.

For many years there were no restrictions on tobacco advertising and the tobacco companies made many claims that have since been shown to be either false or an outright lie. Is the same thing happening now with e-cigarettes? There are currently no restriction on e-cigarette advertising and the manufacturers of e-cigarettes are making many claims that at this time we don't know whether they are true or not.

The question is should e-cigarettes have the same restrictions on advertising as cigarettes? Should their claims need to proven? Do we need to wait for another 20 years before seeing the harmful effects from vaping? Let me know what you think.

John Oliver Takes On Big Tobacco (HBO)

I dare you to watch John Olivers take down on the tobacco companies and not see them as evil.

Tobacco company sponsors teen cessation conference

A few weeks ago I listened to a webinar about reducing teen smoking rates. I knew it was sponsored by Altria (formerly known as Phillip Morris, AKA Marlboro land). It wasn't so much what was said but what was NOT said. There was no disclosure for this webinar that Altria was paying for it and I bet that if it had been disclosed, many of the call participants would have hung up.

Next, I started receiving notices about a two day conference in Tennessee in November, again sponsored by Altria. Is this an attempt to rectify their past misdeeds? Or just a brilliant marketing message--anyone who attends this conference is given a message that is used when returning to work with teens. The message will be one that is shaped to least harmful for the tobacco companies.

Does anyone really believe they don't want our children to smoke? They don't want their children to smoke but they sure do want your children and the billions of children around the world to pick it up. In Indonesia, there are no age restrictions for selling cigarettes and it's routine to market to teens. In the United States, we have tried to stop sales to children and stop the blatant youth marketing, such as with Joe Camel, but all our tobacco control efforts has done is to make the tobacco companies become masters of manipulation where ever their product is discussed--even under the guise of "cessation".

The tobacco companies have lied for years and have been convicted for racketeering-- the same charges the mafia have been convicted under. The judge ruled that the culture of deceit was so prevalent within the company structure that deceit was likely to continue. Which means we all need to be vigilant against their vast billions of dollars used to get teens addicted to tobacco products before they are legally able to buy them.

For related stories click here: A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing   Smoking Baby  Cigarette advertising to teens

How theTobacco Companies are Targeting Young Men to Start Smoking

Men's Health has an excellent article of how the Tobacco Companies are targeting young men and why their marketing is working. It also explains what nicotine does to the brain which makes it much more difficult to stop smoking.


http://www.menshealth.com/cda/article.do?site=MensHealth&channel=health&category=other.diseases.ailments&conitem=1f662c4d88ee9110VgnVCM10000013281eac