I-Search 1: Does the ban on smoking in public places reduce tobacco consumption?
This topic could be discussed in a class that discusses effectiveness of public policy in the face of corporate lobbying. Tobacco companies have found ways to subvert public policy, market their products differently and have even created alternate products that are tobacco based but are not prohibited by current laws.
What I Knew
I have known for a while now that tobacco consumption is extremely harmful for health. In the form of cigarettes, tobacco is combined with other potent chemicals which reduce our health drastically . Cigarette smoking is injurious both to the smoker and people around them. After years of lobbying from non-government agencies, academic areas, and the medical fraternity, many governments adopted the ban on smoking in public areas to reduce the risk of second-hand smoking . Governments stood to lose several million dollars in taxes with this move, and tobacco companies would lose larger amounts of money with this ban. Yet the tobacco industry hasn’t shut down, neither has it slowed down. In 2015, the US tobacco companies were recording considerable profits . There had to be methods that tobacco companies were using to ensure tobacco sales in spite of smoking bans.
Why I’m Writing
I am writing this paper because the example of the tobacco industry shows that by reducing the problem of tobacco consumption to ‘public nuisance’ governments have provided avenues for tobacco companies to keep their products alive in different settings and even creating products that can bypass such laws. Banning smoking in public places does not address the root cause of the problem which is nicotine addiction. Like any substance abuse, cigarette smoking needs to move out of its historically acceptable status and become recognized as an addiction of the same level as cocaine or alcohol addiction and which requires the same level of intervention.
The Search
This issue has been in the frontline for several years now. I first did a simple Google Search on “ban on smoking in public” and “history of ban on smoking in public” which gave me information on the developments in this policy over the years. I next did a search on “impact of tobacco ban on government” and “impact of tobacco ban on tobacco companies”. This provided information that bans don’t appear to have major financial impact on either party which set the next search for how losses were mitigated. The next general search was on “ban on smoking + tobacco industry tactics” which gave me information on what kind of measures the tobacco industry takes in order to work around the public bans including e-cigarettes, industry consolidation, and marketing to low-income countries where public knowledge on the effects of smoking is less than those in developed countries.
Once I had this outline ready, I searched on the site of Google Scholar to find journal articles and other documents on this subject. In my searches I first used keywords similar to the initial Google search and then became more specific. I searched for the effects of the ban of smoking in public “tobacco control and financial impact on companies” and next searched for the specific tactics employed by tobacco industry. I first searched for “tobacco control + tobacco company tactics” and then searched for individual measures like “the efficacy of e-cigarettes”, “tobacco industry consolidation” and “tobacco marketing to low income countries”. They gave me results that I could use to write a paper built around the hypothesis that public ban on smoking does not reduce tobacco consumption.
Building on this initial research I would like to do more research on the correlation between the addictive nature of nicotine and the slow progress in cessation of smoking worldwide and how policy needs to address the addiction and not just the consumption.
What I Learned
I found that there have been positive effects to public bans with reduction in incidences of cardiovascular disease in USA , Britain , and Italy . There has been significant impact of ban in workplace smoking, smokers have quit or reduced consumption . There is also evidence that bans also contribute to reduction in the incidence of smoking in future generations . Concerns around the economic impact of tobacco control/ban of cigarettes include job losses, reduction in government revenues, increase in smuggling, and disproportionate impact on poor consumers , . Tobacco companies have found several methods to work around this ban like generating doubt about policy, offering voluntary agreements, public relations, and others . E-cigarettes are offered as an alternative that appears to aid cessation but their actual impact on health is not fully understood , . Another more insidious tactic is to aggressively market cigarettes in low and middle income countries to compensate for economic losses in the developed world , ,.
Having come to know how tobacco companies ensure tobacco consumption despite ban on smoking, my interest has become more focused; in future I would like to research on the correlation between nicotine and effectiveness of bans and I would like to research methods to counter tobacco company tactics in low-income countries.
Works Cited
American Lung Association. "What's In a Cigarette?" Lung.org. 11 June 2016 <http://www.lung.org/stop-smoking/smoking-facts/whats-in-a-cigarette.html/>.
Brown, Jamie and Emma Beard. "Real-world effectiveness of e-cigarettes when used to aid smoking cessation: a cross-sectional population study." Addiction (2014): 1531-1540.
Cahn, Zachary and Michael Siegel. "Electronic cigarettes as a harm reduction strategy for tobacco control: A step forward or a repeat of past mistakes?" Journal of Public Health Policy (2011): 16-31.
Cesaroni, Giulia, Francesco Forastiere and Nera Agabiti. "Effect of the Italian Smoking Ban on Population Rates of Acute Coronary Events." Circulation (2008): 1183-1188.
Doku, David. "The tobacco industry tactics-a challenge for tobacco control in low and middle income countries." African Health Sciences (2010): 201-203.
Fichtenberg, Caroline M and Stanton A Glantz. "Effect of smoke-free workplaces on smoking behaviour: systematic review." British Medical Journal (2002): 1-7.
Grana, Rachel, Neal Benowitz and Stanton A. Glantz. "E-Cigarettes: A scientific review." Circulation (2014): 1972-1986.
Lee, Sungkyu, Pamela M. Ling and Stanton A. Glantz. "The vector of the tobacco epidemic: tobacco industry practices in low and middle-income countries." Cancer Causes Control (2012): 117-129.
Mackay, Judith and Michael Eriksen. The Tobacco Atlas. Hong Kong: Phoenix Offset Ltd, 2002.
Meyers, David G, John S Neuberger and He Jianghua. "Cardiovascular Effect of Bans on Smoking in Public Places." Journal of the American College of Cardiology (2009): 1249-1255.
Saloojee, Yousuf and Elif Dagli. "Tobacco industry tactics for resisting public policy on health." Bulletin of the World Health Organization January 2000: 902-910.
Sargent, Richard P, Robert M Shepard and Stanton A. Glantz. "Reduced incidence of admission for myocardial infarction associated with public smoking ban." British Medical Journal (2004): 1-4.
The World Bank. "Curbing the epidemic: governments and the economics of tobacco control." Tobacco Control (1999): 196-201.
Wakefield, Melanie, et al. "Do Restrictions at home, school and public places influence teenage smoking." Impacteen: Research Paper series June 2000.
Weiss, Brennan. "Bad for the lungs, good for the portfolio." The Washington Times 28 July 2015.
