Freedom to choose or ad ban?

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 6, Issue 310, 24 October 1989, Page 4

Freedom to choose or ad ban?

The Bulletin has been asked to join a group called "New Zealanders for the right to decide" which is against the proposed ban on tobacco advertising and sponsorship from tobacco companies. The group says the ban would "infringe upon the freedom of New Zealanders to receive and to impart information about legitimate products, which amounts to censorship". They say the main reason for their fight is the protection of those freedoms. One would have to agree, working for a newspaper, that restricting freedom of speech is an 'evil' to be fought hard and long. However the facts now available about smoking make it impossible to deny that it is also an 'evil'. Advertising pays, a newspaper has to believe that, and if it didn't pay tobacco producers would not insist on having their name plastered around the sporting arenas they support. They advertise because they want to educate people on the delights of smoking. The alliance states that stopping people smoking is a matter for education, not legislation, but the cost of the counter-education that would be necessary to block the effects of the millions of dollars worth of tobacco advertising would be enormous. So it's a case of which 'evil' you are prepared to live with, the loss of an important principle of freedom of speech, or the loss of the good health of a massive section of our population. There is one way out of the dilemma without succumbing to either 'evil'. We all exercise our rights and decide not to run tobacco advertising or to seek tobacco sponsorship, then there will be no need for the ban nor the counter-education. That road would be hard initially, especially for many sports groups, but the long term health benefits should fit in well with the aims of most sports minded people.