Ethical Issues For Ban On Tobacco Advertising In India

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Throughout life, we experience many conflicts of interest in ethical issues as all people have different understandings with different surroundings. There are many ethical issues for ban on tobacco advertising with the conflict of interest that pertained to government in India. In this essay, I will discuss about agreements and disagreements of the ban on tobacco advertising in India with the conflict of interest issues. Lastly, I will present my opinions on what India government should do.

Advocates believed that tobacco advertising may affect public health and induce children and young people to begin experimenting with tobacco products. Advertising towards children could not be considered ethical as children have not yet fully developed …show more content…

They asserted that the advertisement should be legal if a product is legally sold and they claimed that the government needs to stop production if the cigarette is illegal goods. They strongly raised objections that the advertising ban violates their freedom of expression as well and they denied that they targeted young smokers through advertisement. For instance, the survey from the Indian Market Research Bureau, 49% of respondent answered that they began smoking because of their curiosity and no one said advertising induced them to smoke. This research sympathized with tobacco companies and it verified that the advertisement did not have a serious impact on young people. Tobacco companies underlined that the ban on tobacco advertising will impact on the customer’s brand selection only and that does not result in an increase in tobacco consumption. For example, from the Indian market, the main producer of cigarettes comprised only 16% of the market and the other 84% was accounted for by other products such as ghutka, zarda. The ghutka and zarda are more harmful products and this result highlighted that the ban on tobacco advertising was not likely to have a major impact on the tobacco consumption rate. Moreover, there were weak correlation between cigarette consumption and money spent by cigarette companies on advertisements and this revealed that the advertisement does …show more content…

A lot of foreign magazines are sold in India and television channels that were uplinked from foreign countries carried an advertisement by cigarette multinationals. In accordance with the article, “Marlboro, was very popular with well-to-do Indian youth, even minors. Formula I could be viewed on the sports channels, as they were uplinked from outside the country” Even though India imposed such a ban on the domestic players; people are in contact with a variety of foreign advertisements from the television and internet as well. The foreign advertisement is seen as particularly dangerous as it may influence the smoking habits of younger viewers because the advertisement emphasizes the exotic image by introducing fruit-flavored cigarettes with the latest

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