The tobacco industry generates over 35 billion dollars per year, tobacco is very harmful to a person's health and it causes all kinds of diseases. Tobacco is highly addictive, so once you start it is very unlikely that you will ever be able to quit. The tobacco industry has lifelong customers, but they are always looking to find new ones and they want to start them as young as possible. In over 20 countries tobacco is marketed towards children to make them want to become smokers. Children should not be directly marketed to by tobacco companies since at such a young age they are so impressionable. In the CNBC article they used a study from Tobacco-free kids. In the studies that they drew from it states that in the countries that they researched …show more content…
"For us, responsible marketing is about ensuring that our product and brand communications are not aimed at, or made appealing to, people under the age of 18 or non-smokers and that we operate in accordance with local laws." Saying that they are not marketing toward children and actually not marketing toward children are two very different things. Tobacco products kill almost 500,00 men and women each year, and if the people that make and sell those products can sleep at night from that, lying to the media most likely will not bother them one bit. The spokespeople from the tobacco companies claim that they have done nothing wrong. “A JTI spokesperson said it complies with all laws regarding advertising of tobacco products and that it does not market products to minors.” The big tobacco companies say that they have have never marketed towards kids and that they are obeying all laws. This would not be the first time that a big corporation has lied to the public, so It can be hard to tell whether the spokespersons is actually telling the truth or not. The sale of cigarettes are very close to schools and children see them for sale all the time.
Marlboro cigarettes, owned by Philip Morris International (PMI), were seen for sale close to schools in 20 of the 21 countries surveyed. In 13 of those, the cigarettes were for sale with 250 meters of a school at more than 2,400 retailers.