Discussion Question 1 Week 4 - Assignment Example

Business Introduction An example of laws that was enacted to protect consumers in United s of America was the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act (1970). The legislature banned advertising of cigarettes on radio as well as on television. That left the tobacco industry to advertise their cigarettes only on billboards and the print media. Even the package of cigarettes was made to carry the warning labels with the message “Warning: Smoking of cigarettes is harmful to health.” The Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act demanded the use of various different cigarette warning labels that should be rotated sequentially.

In a cigarette industry where I am employed, in the past twenty years, the U.S. cigarette companies used to spend as much as $1.1 billion on marketing alone. That marketing involved advertising, labeling and promotion of cigarette smoking. Before the enactment of the law in 1970, brands of cigarettes regularly sponsored the American television and radio programs in 1960s and 1950s. In early 1970s, marketing of cigarettes then extended to newspapers, magazines and to billboards. Ten years before the enactment of the tobacco law, all tobacco companies continued to advertise, promote and label cigarette packages with messages such as “approved by doctor” along with images of beautiful models and athlete who are enjoying their life with cigarettes in their hands to raise the awareness, sales and preference of the cigarette brand.

Due to the kind of cigarette advertisements by cigarette companies, consumers of cigarettes continued to smoke without knowing the health impact of excessive usage of tobacco and cigarettes. That was because smoking advertisements were majorly focused on glamorizing smoking and did not expose the grim realities of using tobacco. For all that period, the cigarette companies did not succeed in fulfilling the promise of enlightening its consumers about health effects caused by smoking. Adamson (2010) states that the failure of manufacturers of cigarettes to discharge these promises making the consumers to remain misinformed concerning the smoking risks associated with their health.

The Tobacco Control Act was endorsed to regulate advertising and marketing of cigarette and tobacco. These included introduction of new warnings for products of smokeless tobacco and prohibition of manufacturing products that used deceptive descriptive terms like “low”, “light” and “mild”. In the next 10 years, if this law is not repealed, it will lead to a negative impact on cigarette business. This is because sale of cigarettes will reduce since its marketing is being reduced. At the moment, all colorful cigarette advertisements and displays are only allowed in black and white.

And tobacco advertisement has been banned in areas near schools and playgrounds. Furthermore, cigarette manufacturers are obligated to display label warnings on all cigarette packaging. All these will limit cigarette use. If a consumer lawsuit arising from Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act (1970) is instigated at our cigarette business, it would negatively impact our business financially. It would make the company to undergo major losses. Judging from a previous lawsuit in one of the tobacco company in the country because of not adhering to marketing and advertising restrictions, the company was forced to pay a fine of $205 billion so as to settle the matter (Emerson 57).

Works CitedAdamson, John. Business Law. New York: Cengage Learning publisher, 2010. Print.Emerson, Robert. Business Law. New York: Barrons educational series publisher, 2009. Print.