Pros And Cons Of Against Tobacco Advertising

The arguments in favor of the ban on tobacco advertising in India are as follows. That it was not an out of the ordinary ban compared with other countries. France, Finland, Norway and Belgium all had bans and in all these countries the bans were ruled as constitutional. That there were bans on other products deemed to be dangerous such as firearms and pharmaceuticals. That advertising was the major factor that lead young people to first try tobacco and get them hooked and that the ban on advertising of tobacco products did indeed greatly reduce the use of the product in countries where it was effectively enforced and used as part of a comprehensive tobacco control policy.

Here are the arguments presented against the ban on tobacco …show more content…
In the United States there is a saying “You can’t shout fire in a crowded theater.” This saying refers to a law that until 1969 criminalized speech that created a “clear and present danger”* in other words created a dangerous situation. So again i am generalizing in relating my own understanding of freedom of speech and it’s limitations in cases where it threatens the common good. As i understand it if the government of India were to be able to clearly show that tobacco advertising directly leads to its use and the use of tobacco has clearly been shown as presenting a danger to peoples health then tobacco advertising could be both criminalized and its use banned.

In my opinion government intervention not only in tobacco advertising but in all things is questionable at best and should be kept to a minimum whenever possible. All that government is is a group of people that hold authority over the whole in a given state. In the best case scenario this authority is granted to the government by the sovereign will of the people. In the worst case scenario authority is usurped by force, treachery or other means of corruption and government becomes a tyranny that imposes its own will over the …show more content…
If though one clearly examines the evidence presented above and examines it in an unbiased way does this assumption hold true? In my humble view it does not. It is not clearly shown that the ban on tobacco advertising prevents the use of tobacco. In one study the exact inverse is shown. Young people smoked more after a ban on tobacco advertising was imposed than they did when advertising was allowed. So the utility of banning tobacco advertising as a tool in the prevention of its use would seem questionable at