TOBACCO COMPANIES ORDERED TO PUBLICLY
ADMIT DECEPTION ON SMOKING DANGERS
http://edition.cnn.com
- Tobacco companies have been ordered by a federal judge to
publicly admit, through advertisements and package warnings, that they
deceived American consumers for decades about the dangers of smoking.
Federal Judge Gladys Kessler issued her ruling Tuesday in one of the
last legal steps settling liability in the long-running government
prosecution of cigarette makers. “By ensuring that consumers know that
[tobacco companies] have misled the public in the past on the issue of
secondhand smoke in addition to putting forth the fact that a scientific
consensus on this subject exists,” said Kessler, “defendants will be
less likely to attempt to argue in the future that such a consensus does
not exist.”
Several other lawsuits over
cigarette labeling are pending in federal court, part of a two-decade
federal and state effort to force tobacco companies to limit their
advertising, and settle billions of dollars in state and private
class-action claims over the health dangers of smoking.
The
judge, six years ago, concluded that tobacco companies were guilty of
racketeering, and had ordered them to put tougher warning labels and
other language in their marketing. The litigation had been tied up for
years over the wording of such labels, but Kessler said Tuesday the
language pushed by the Justice Department was factual. “Corrective
statements” were ordered to be placed on five different areas,
including: “Smoking is highly addictive. Nicotine is the addictive drug
in tobacco” and “When you smoke, the nicotine actually changes the brain
- that's why quitting is so hard.”
Another
mandated message says: “A Federal Court has ruled that the Defendant
tobacco companies deliberately deceived the American public about
designing cigarettes to enhance the delivery of nicotine, and has
ordered those companies to make this statement. Here is the truth:
Smoking kills, on average, 1200 Americans. Everyday.” Other areas deal
with second-hand smoke dangers, and the false benefits of so-called “low
tar” and “mild” cigarettes marketed by some companies.

Major
tobacco companies who spent decades denying they lied to the US public
about the dangers of cigarettes must spend their own money on a public
advertising campaign saying they did lie, a federal judge ruled. According
to the ruling, one of the statements says: “Tobacco companies
intentionally designed cigarettes to make them more addictive.” Another
says: “All cigarettes cause cancer, lung disease, heart attacks, and
premature death.” Tobacco companies have to admit that they deceived all
people around the world - not just Americans - by misleading
advertising campaigns about the dreadful dangers of smoking, only to
become super-billionaire without considering the damage they have done to the people.
WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?
Working in advertising is a big responsibility. It is therefore
essential that this profession should be run with consciousness and
involve the truth. ... In fact, the principles of advertising such as
suggestion and creativity can be put at the service of ecology, health,
education, culture. These themes are so important to mankind that never
the work of publicists can be ignored. ... Advertising should show
these facts to people, and free them of mental conditioning and
pollution to which they have been subjected by the advertising with a
bad conscience. The Spoon Revolution is an example that it is possible
to cure the disease with the same machinery that caused it. Conscious
advertising and conscious commerce are not a problem. The publisher has
an important social function, so he is prompted to put forward
campaigns for the common good.
No comments:
Post a Comment