Raising Anti Smoking Sentiments and the Future of Tobacco

Anti smoking sentiments have been on the raise beginning in the 1980s. The 80s were particulary revolutionary to the entire no smoking debate. This is the time when the dangers of second hand smoke became a major talking point as a result of a convincing piece of research on the subject. Generally speaking prior to this time, dangers of smoking were particulary associated with the individual smoking.

Also for many years until the 90s big tobacco had fought particulary extremely hard to prevent public and government access to nitty gritty information on tobacco and cigarettes in general. The can of worms opened in the late 90s when the tobacco industry in the United States was forced to reveal hidden details about the ingredients and compounds in cigarettes. This was followed by a flood of tobacco lawsuits by families and victims of smoking deseases. This essentially marked the beginning of anti smoking sentiments particulary in the west.

Even though much resistance came from the powerful tobacco industry, smoking laws many of which banned smoking in public places were enacted swiftly across the United States, Europe and other countries such as Japan and South Africa. As of 2009 over 38 states in America had some form of tobacco regulation laws or policies in place. The no smoking war urupted even further when research work from reputable universities and independent experts revealed that governments were spending billions of dollars to deal with the health effects of smoking.

For instance, the British National Health Services (NHS) spends as much as $200 billion per year on anti smoking initiatives which includes advertisements, stop smoking products and treatment, law enforcement amongst other things. This money comes directly from the national budget which in turn is a function of income tax on the general citizenry. This upsets many to know and is an opportunity for campainging politicians to continue advocating for tobacco regulation policies and laws.

The growing no smoking sentiments across much of the western world is making big tobacco uncomfortable. In as much as the market in Europe and America is generally shrinking the tobacco industry's future appear for now to be strongly anchored in newer and growing markets in the poorer parts of the world. Take for instance, China is the largest tobacco market in the world and with the biggest number of smokers 350 million in total. Over two trillion cigarettes are consumed per annum in China alone.

Overall, tobacco companies will not continue to enjoy market hegemony for long. In 2003 the World Health Organisation (WHO) successfully introduced the Framework Covention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) which today has over 150 countries as members. This convention directly attacks the iron hand for long enjoyed by big tobacco on the market. It will and it continues to weaken tobacco industry efforts to mantain access to the market by introducing controls on tobacco advertising. For example, in South Africa tobacco advertising is outlawed including non tobacco adverts but which use people smoking or using tobacco.

Perhaps the developing countries will need to go through the same process that the west went through to arrive at a place of complete access to smoking information. The decline in smoking prevalance in Africa, Asia and South America will be driven by access to information on the dangers of smoking. This will certainly happen faster than it did in Europe and America due to the ongoing technological and access to information revolution. This altogther means the tobacco industry doesn't after all posses as much time in the matter. The anti smoking sweep will shortly take hold of India, Africa and China.

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