After decade of delay

Decades after they were banned from the airwaves, Big Tobacco companies return to prime-time television this weekend — but not by choice. Under court order, the tobacco industry for the first time will be forced to advertise the deadly, addictive effects of smoking, more than 11 years after a judge ruled that the companies had misled the public about the dangers of cigarettes.


But years of legal pushback by the industry over every detail means the ads will be less hard-hitting than what was proposed. Tobacco-control experts say the campaign — built around network TV and newspapers — will not reach people when they are young and most likely to start smoking.

“Their legal strategy is always obstruct, delay, create confusion and buy more time,” said Ruth Malone, of the University of California, San Francisco, who has studied the industry for 20 years. “So by the time this was finally settled, newspapers have a much smaller readership, and nowadays, who watches network TV?”

The new spots, which begin Sunday, lay out the toll of smoking in blunt text and voice-over statements: “More people die every year from smoking than from murder, AIDS, suicide, drugs, car crashes and alcohol, combined.”

Companies also will acknowledge their role in making cigarettes addictive: “Cigarette companies intentionally designed cigarettes with enough nicotine to create and sustain addiction.” Smoking remains the nation’s leading preventable cause of death and illness, causing more than 480,000 deaths each year, even though smoking rates have fallen for decades. Last year, the adult smoking rate hit a new low of 15 percent, according to government figures.

Read more at The Seattle Times