APA Ban on All Tobacco Advertising in Publications Targeted Primarily at Youth

Written by: shiela.goldwater.se
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2010

The American Psychological Association (APA) recommends that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) employ a more comprehensive strategy to restrict the sale and distribution of cigarettes to minors. Banning not only image-oriented advertising of cigarettes and tobacco product, but text-only advertising as well in publications that are targeted primarily at youth. The APA also maintains that there are strong and compelling reasons for implementing laws and regulations to prevent tobacco use by minors in the United States. The APA found the Synar Amendment to be a viable approach in ensuring the enforcement of the proposed regulations.

To accomplish the goal of reducing tobacco use by youth by half within 7 years of the rule's final publication, the APA made recommendations on the policy, on the design of the anti-tobacco campaign and on the labeling and advertising restrictions.



Recommendations on the proposed rule include:

* Stipulating that the maximum number of cigarettes per pack be 20.
* Combining school programs and anti-smoking advertising to reduce the rates of smoking among people under age 18.
* Focusing on resistance to peer influence and short-term negative consequences of tobacco use to maximize effectiveness.

Recommendations on the design of the anti-tobacco ads include:

* Providing counterarguments to the points and inducements highlighted in tobacco ads.
* Avoiding scare tactics such as images of severe health problems and death.
* Portraying tobacco users as different from the target audience of ads and similar to the target audience.
* Refraining from describing teenage tobacco use as a widespread national problem, doing so normalizes the behavior for teens.

Recommendations on labeling and advertising include:

* Banning text-only ads in publications that primarily target youth.
* Requiring a listing of component parts or ingredients in cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products in advertisements of
tobacco products.
* Requiring manufacturers to provide information describing the range of possible human exposures to nicotine via cigarette delivery.
* Considering the effect that pictures, such as a damaged lung, may have on labeling.

The APA further recommended that the tobacco industry have no involvement in the public education program and that cigarette labels should describe a range of possible human exposures to nicotine as well as information about several major toxins present in smoke rather than only list the content ratings.
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The efforts of the APA are laudible. Howver, a decade later, little has changed, probably due to the enormous tobacco lobby in Washington, and the $1000s, $100,000s and $1,000,0000s paid to our elected officials who receive these funds in exchange for looking the other way or failing to develop legislation to stop the legalized sale of tobacco in the US and abroad.

Tobacco kills. It is addictive and has no redeeming value whatsoever. The aiding and abbetting of tobacco company sales is nothing short of the murder of hundreds of millions of people worldwide. More people die of tobacco every year than all the wars on the planet every year.

Why do we tolerate it?

Dr. Marlene M. Maheu, a Licensed Psychologist, is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of one of the largest self-help & psychology portals, SelfhelpMagazine. More articles from this author are available at http://www.selfhelpmagazine.com/. Original article link: http://selfhelpmagazine.com/article/tobacco

Dr. Marlene Maheu

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