OCR Text |
Show Move underway to change TV cigarette ads Several prominent Americans have called upon government authorities (or Congress) to halt cigarette advertising on television. At first one's reaction re-action is that this would be somewhat drastic but upon reflection the suggestion may have considerable merit. Cigarette advertising goes into every television home and brain-washes children of all ages. It can be argued that they might as well be exposed to such commercial propaganda, propagan-da, since they will be exposed to it in life anyhow, but one answer to that is that young children are not prepared to cope with it, to understand the falseness of the claims made, at an early age. The claims are often outrageously outrage-ously false. In addition, so much symbolism and health and fun by association is sold in cigarette ads, children could not possibly be unaffected by the trickery. Claims such as this or that cigarette refreshes the taste are absolutely false and should be barred but one continues to hear such statements state-ments which are certain to mislead children, and even some adults. If cigarette c o m m ercials were regulated by tough standards stand-ards and it was specifically stated in each that cigarette smoking is a danger to one's health, and not advisable for children, the case for allowing such advertising to continue would be much stronger. If that is not done, the number of people and organizations who oppose cigarette advertising adver-tising on television may steadily stead-ily increase. |