Shots of hang-gliders, mountain climbers, ski racers and aerobic dancers promise adventure or athletic prowess. Society has a moral duty to ban such brainwashing of unwilling, unsuspecting consumers into taking up a habit that will eventually kill them, or so critics claim. Opposing restrictions on cigarette ads are those who agree that society has a right to restrict freedom of expression when the exercise of this freedom causes harm to others. But, they argue, while cigarettes themselves may be harmful, cigarette advertising is not. First, contrary to the critics' claims, ads for cigarettes do not cause people to smoke, just as ads for soap don't cause people to bathe.
People take up smoking for a variety of reasons.
For teenagers, it's often peer pressure or imitating adults that factor in as the principal reason. At most, cigarette ads function to persuade people who already smoke to switch brands. Second, the charge that cigarette ads intentionally deceive consumers is unjustified. The images portrayed in cigarette ads are realistic ones. There are, in fact, skiers, tennis players and aerobic dancers who smoke.