Tobacco promotion restrictions: ironies and unintended consequences

As the health consequences of tobacco smoking have become more apparent, governments have regulated the types of promotion available to cigarette manufacturers. Yet despite these efforts, the tobacco industry has continued to develop highly visible promotions that make greater use of youth role models and of new media known to have high penetration among youth. Attempts to reduce the impact of the tobacco industry's promotions seem unintentionally to have stimulated the development of more subtle initiatives that are harder to regulate and that reach and influence young people even more effectively. Alternative means of controlling the health-related consequences of smoking include further promotion restrictions and tighter controls on the sale and distribution of tobacco. Social marketing programmes based on techniques developed by the tobacco industry may yet provide the richest irony: use of the industry's own tactics to counter its messages. (C) 2002 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.