Public Policy Issue Paper: Reducing the Social Acceptability for Smoking

Excerpts from the Paper

Public Policy Issue Paper: Reducing the Social Acceptability for Smoking
A) Background of the problem
The tobacco industry and lobbying groups have worked very hard to enhance the social acceptability of smoking for consumers for decades (Lavack & Toth 2) with the idea that smoking is a social habit and influence by peer opinion (Lavack & Toth 2). They do this so people will buy more cigarettes and the cigarette companies will increase profits. Through advertising and marketing, cigarette smoking is promoted as socially acceptable, although it is less of an acceptable habit now than it used to be, with more provincial laws banning smoking indoors and in some public spaces in the 1990’s. Similar government bans have taken place in...

.....There should also be limited distribution of cigarettes to consumers so they can’t buy cigarettes as easily. This could be done through higher costs to retailers, who will be less encouraged to sell cigarettes.
Works Cited
Dunn, W.D. Public Policy Analysis: An Introduction, 4th edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2011.
Lavack, Anne M. & Toth, Graham. “Reducing the Social Acceptability of Smoking: a role for government?” IACP. Institute of Public Administration of Canada (2011). Web. Retrieved from http://www.ipac.ca.
Sen, Anindya & Wirjanto, Tony. “Estimating the impacts of cigarette taxes on youth smoking participation, initiation, and persistence: empirical evidence from Canada.” Health Economics 19.11 (2010 Nov): 1264-1280.