The ethics of tobacco advertising and advertising bans
Simon Chapman
University Department of Community Medicine, Westmead Hospital, Westmead, NSW, Australia

In this chapter, I will examine the main ethical parameters of the arguments pertaining to the alleged 'right' to advertise tobacco products and those maintaining that it should be banned. In particular, I will explore the ethics of the adoption of 'partial' bans on tobacco advertising, since there are now few countries which do not restrict tobacco advertising in some way.

The banning of all forms of tobacco advertising and promotion has long been regarded as a central platform of comprehensive tobacco control policy. Ruth Roemer's 1993 review of the regulation of tobacco lists 27 nations which claim to have totally banned tobacco advertising, with a further 77 having some form of restriction1. More recently, Bulgaria, Hungary, Lithuania, Moldova, Slovakia, Ukraine and Russia have also been reported to have implemented bans. The research and public health policy literature on tobacco advertising has burgeoned as moves to ban advertising have become increasingly contested. This literature has been recently reviewed2"4 and its scope covers the nine areas listed below (these are referenced with particularly important examples of each). 1. Documentation and commentary on changing expenditure on tobacco advertising and promotion5, including how this expenditure ranks with other commodity advertising. 2. Econometric research into the relationship between the volume of tobacco advertising and changes in tobacco consumption6. 3. Research into the recognition, recall, approval of, or liking for tobacco advertising7 and sponsorship8, usually by children; and research into the relationship between reaction to such advertising and children's subsequent use of tobacco9. 4. Reports of ways by which tobacco advertisers circumvent voluntary codes and legal bans and restrictions10, including evidence for product