[C-U Smokefree] Tactics and their rationale

[Theotskl at aol.com]

Hi there--

FYI.

Theo

Theo Tsoukalas






Tobacco Industry  Tactics  and Their Rationale

 (1) Support of federal and state laws that preempt local government 
regulatory authority.  
Industry’s Rationale: Preemptive legislation blocks community action and its 
related shifts in social norms which, among others, discourage smoking and 
eliminate secondhand smoke exposure.

(2) Support of laws that penalize children for possession of tobacco 
products. 
Industry’s Rationale: these laws increase the "forbidden fruit" appeal of 
tobacco and diverts attention away from the responsibility of the merchants and 
the industry for the tobacco addiction of young people.

(3) Support of programs that focus solely on children, as exemplified in 
youth access to tobacco and in the criminalization of possession of tobacco 
products by minors.
Industry’s Rationale: Diversion of attention away form the problems among 
adults and the industry’s role in maintaining a social environment friendly to 
tobacco use.

(4) Support of narrowly-focused efforts to reduce adult smoking via a 
clinical cessation approach that would target smokers only.
Industry’s Rationale: To avoid promotion of cessation programs (i.e smoke 
free ordinances) that would target entire communities and that emphasize the 
dangers of secondhand smoke exposure which, in turn, might lead to changes  in 
social norms that discourage tobacco use.

(5) Support of preferential funding of school programs.
Industry’s Rationale: Such programs promote ignorance of the broader social 
environment and emphasize a program channel which cannot compete with other 
more immediate problems such as illiteracy, teenage pregnancy, drug and alcohol 
use, and violence.

Conclusion: these tactics enable industry to do is the propagation and 
recovery of a positive "environment for the sale and use of tobacco products." As 
the California experience has shown , "The social environment, with its norms 
around tobacco, is the real ground of contention in the struggle between public 
health and the tobacco industry."  And as I have learned, this struggle is 
also about justice, and about peace, and about human dignity:  health is person’s 
ultimate wealth, and nobody should have the right to take that away.  

Theo Tsoukalas, Ph.D.
San Francisco, California
January 01, 2004.


NOTE: The tactics and their rationale are derived from the following source: 
California Department of Health Services, Tobacco Control Section (October 
1998),  A Model for Change: The California Experience in Tobacco Control. 
Sacramento, California.  [Note: This report was accessed in PDF form from 
www.dhs.cahwnet.gov/ps/cdic/ccb/tcs/index.htm]