Smoking

([|http://www.letitpass.com/17p_reasons7_1.html)] (http://www.ctprevention.org/erase/images/smoking-gif.gif)

As American businesses grow, so does the number of countries they advertise in. For some countries, this may be a good thing, bringing business opportunities and different products along with it. Some countries may even welcome the new products being sold, but many American influences have been negative, causing problems. Smoking was once hugely popular in [|America]. Cigarette companies advertised on [|billboards], in commercials, and in [|magazines]. Advertising led America to believe that cigarettes were [|healthy] and in no way harmful, when in truth, the opposite is true. According to Encyclopedia Americana, "Throughout the 20th century numerous researchers, working independently, provided scientific proof that tobacco poses a health threat." (Encyclopedia Americana 72) Once Americans learned the serious health risks of smoking, cigarette businesses lost many customers, leading them to spread their business overseas.

There are now laws against advertising smoking on television and most magazines. The companies have to mention the health risks, which are “lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema and other serious diseases.” ([|http://www.philipmorrisinternational.com]) This was bad for the smoking businesses because after not being able to advertise, their business went down. In order to keep their business going, smoking companies decided to start selling [|cigarettes] in different countries where “citizens don’t know the effects of smoking, and aren’t properly informed of what they’re putting into their bodies.”(multinationalmonitor.com) Ever since these laws were passed, "Among Americans, smoking rates shrunk by nearly half in three decades (from the mid-1960s to mid-1990s)" and "In the developing world, tobacco consumption is rising by 3.4% per year."(http://www.wpro.who.int/media_centre/fact_sheets/fs_20020528.htm) This is due to the change of target customers of tobacco companies.

Cigarette companies take advantage of the fact that citizens are uninformed about the risks of smoking and that there is no smoking age in certain countries. Countries such as [|China] and [|Japan] were big targets of cigarette companies, along with many developing countries like [|Malaysia] and [|Cambodia]. Employees will be hired to hand out free cigarettes on the street in order to draw in more customers. These cigarettes will be handed out to people of all ages, including small children, many times by women wearing tight outfits in the cigarette company’s colors. “The [women will] go, they'll flirt with them, they'll offer them cigarettes and then they will use their lighters in a very seductive way to light the cigarette in the mouths of these young men and then sit and chat with them. It almost looks like prostitution, if you didn't know it had to do with [|tobacco].” (multinationalmonitor.org)

Targeting developing countries to sell cigarettes has caused serious problems. The unknown effects and lack of laws protecting the health of citizens living in those countries, not to mention the lack of medical support, have led to people unknowingly inhaling dangerous chemicals. Tobacco companies are targeting innocent, uninformed people just to make a profit. It is unfair and wrong for the companies to do so, and they need to stop their [|empirical] business.

works cited

__Multinational Monitor__. 04 May 2007 <[|http://multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/mm0797.06.html>.]

"Smoking and Health." 2006. Philip Morris International. 04 May 2007 <[|http://www.philipmorrisinternational.com/PMINTL/pages/eng/smoking/S_and_H.asp>.]

"Smoking and Health." __Encyclopedia Americana__. 1999.

"Smoking Statistics." 2005. World Health Organization Regional Office for the Western Pacific. 04 May 2007 <[|http://www.wpro.who.int/media_centre/fact_sheets/fs_20020528.htm>.]

__Your Basic Clues__. Marlboro. 03 May 2007 <([|http://www.letitpass.com/17p_reasons7_1.html)>.]