Without Joe Camel, would the lawsuits or the resulting Master Settlement have ever occured?
I'd personally be interested in how much obesity rates track to how many times the average person eats out at a restaurant in a week. Restaurants serve big portions to justify higher prices, the meals have salt, sugar, fat, all the things we as humans find so tasty but that are distinctly bad for us in anything more than modest amounts.
Or, maybe track the heaviest 40% of the population with how often they eat out at restaurants. By no means does it explain everything, but I think it explains a lot.
Without Joe Camel, would the lawsuits or the resulting Master Settlement have ever occured?
Obesity concerns were used in tobacco advertising since the 1920s, and it's worth noting that the sugar industry copied tobacco's tactics to even greater success (to the point where they had people sympathetic to them on the board of the American Dental Association, while Big Tobacco had much more trouble getting their guys on similar medical boards). I think the obesity epidemic isn't quite related to the decline of tobacco, but the related industries (i.e. Big Sugar) have and are using similar tactics to market their product. A two-liter of Coke and those cheap (and sugar/calorie heavy) snack foods are just as bad as a pack of cigarettes (get fat, rot your teeth, etc.), yet you usually need to show ID to buy the cigarettes which are locked up behind the counter.
Probably, since it was quickly being established you could sue Big Tobacco and get something out of it, and Big Tobacco needed to alleviate this coming legal burden which they had forseen coming. That said, they got off lucky with OTL's Master Settlement.
I agree. Take out is also to blame. I think it's a multi faceted problem that has no quick answer.I'd personally be interested in how much obesity rates track to how many times the average person eats out at a restaurant in a week. Restaurants serve big portions to justify higher prices, the meals have salt, sugar, fat, all the things we as humans find so tasty but that are distinctly bad for us in anything more than modest amounts.
Or, maybe track the heaviest 40% of the population with how often they eat out at restaurants. By no means does it explain everything, but I think it explains a lot.
Yeah, would Congress and all have the will to take down big tobacco that hars without the out cries from Joe?Without Joe Camel, would the lawsuits or the resulting Master Settlement have ever occured?
These are good and important issues.. . . Consider...a group of health enthusiasts want to go after obesity and choose to target companies like Coca Cola and Pepsi advertising their products in movies might be tempted to try similar tactics in any film that shows a character sipping from a can of Coke or Pepsi. . .
. . . Also, should this scrutiny of tobacco firms include any film they give money to that has no smoking whatever in it? . . .
As far as tobacco companies sponsoring movies with no smoking out it simply the goodness of their heart, or sponsoring tennis tournaments and the like, I don’t like them cheaply buying “good corporate citizenship,” and then we’re going to back off on criticizing the centrality of their business which is wretched and rotten. Don’t like it one bit. Not sure how to legislate regarding it, but we as citizens should fall for it.
I, however, do support smoking!Let me be clear. I do not support smoking. . . . Advertising by its definition wants us to try a specific product. We can't fault them for wanting the business. . . .
Nah that movie was clean as attacked everyone and even the movie itself, was even more neutral than the book. Eckhart acting was amazing tooFor example, I think Thank You For Smoking (2006) was a great, kick-ass movie! And I can kind of go for a movie which is an equal opportunity offender.
You might also like The Insider (1999), a movie about an executive who reveals that his company is manipulating the nicotine to be more addictive. The lawyers from the lawsuits that led to the Master Settlement appear in the movie.
Doing just a little research, Jeffrey Wigand was head research chemist and eventually went public with how his company Brown & Williamson put ammonia in cigarettes to give a quicker hit of nicotine. And even after this type or this use of ammonia was shown to potentially cause cancer, the company wanted to keep it in until a safer substitute could be found.You might also like The Insider (1999), a movie about an executive who reveals that his company is manipulating the nicotine to be more addictive. . .
I've read that very few whistle-blowers have ever again worked in their original field. This is kind of a measure that we're not very advanced as a moral culture.
When I worked for this storefront tax place — and not going to say whether it was H&R Block, Jackson Hewitt, or Liberty Tax — I decided that my primary loyalty was to my clients and to my immediate co-workers, and not so much to the company hierarchy.. . . But, seriously, would you hire someone who had just revealed trade secrets to the public at large and damaged the business he worked for? It could be argued from the other side that Mr. Wigand was the immoral one who was willing to reveal company secrets. . .
Just a couple of anecdotes but I have known a few people who gained a lot of weight after quitting smoking.
I believe it is less to do with tobacco and more to do with having something in your hand/mouth.
I agree with this. Better a voluntary tax than an involuntary one. I'm also driven by a belief in personal liberty, but I always make sure to use the tax arguement.I am a big supporter of smoking (I don't smoke myself, that's stupid) because I believe in voluntary taxation. Smoking, drinking, gambling - human vices that can be taxed heavily and taxes that I can avoid paying by choosing to not participate in those activities (I do drink but not that much).
A great example is the baseball stadium that was built in Cleveland (where I am from) in the early 1990s. The ball park was funded in part with sin tax on cigarettes and was then made a non-smoking facility. Now whoever thought of that is the sort of evil genius I aspire to be. Someone who exploits a certain segment of society's lack of discipline for financial gain and then turns around and rubs it in their faces.
Yeah I know, I'm a bad person.