Major Rhetorical Argument of Modern Tobacco Advertisements

A visual displaying some types of cancer caused by tobacco.

Tobacco use in the present-day United States, while diminishing, is still very present. Tobacco comes in many forms, including cigarettes, cigars, and chewing tobacco. People have turned to smoking or other uses of tobacco for centuries generally out of curiosity, boredom, habit, or desire to appear "cool." However, in recent decades, more emphasis has been placed on the consequences of tobacco use, including its causing diverse forms of cancer, perpetrating nicotine addictions, endowing its user with bad breath and smelly clothes, and impacting the health of those around them. On both an individual and a global health level, tobacco products constitute a large and easily preventable problem. They benefit the tobacco industry but can become a serious drain on people's time, money, and physical wellbeing. The use of tobacco products should be discouraged by educating people to make informed decisions by considering the risks associated with smoking, snuff, and chewing tobacco. Many anti-tobacco advertisements today cater to this goal, compared with advertisements in years past that promoted tobacco use until such commercials were banned from television. Perhaps an even more radical solution could be implemented, outlawing tobacco sales in addition to the already-existing bans on smoking in many public places. Consumers themselves can make individual lifestyle choices about whether to use tobacco products

Poster for a 2005 movie that presented the crafty
ways that the tobacco industry maintains its hold on
Congress and on American consumers.

or not, but until legal action is taken, tobacco industries will continue to subsist on the users they already have hooked. We must all decide whether we want to live in a society that condones costly, unhealthy addictions, or whether it's about time we outlawed this increasingly antiquated practice.