And another term paper..93% on this one
For all you vapers, you know who you are, this isn’t about you -nothing more then a term paper needed to write for an ethics course.. nothing personal. But actually happy with how it came out but will see when I get the grade back if I was on the right track.. Now to do my final draft and submit.
Vaping advertisements and youth
Section 1. Context
Vaping is a relatively new product on the market, while it is safer than smoking, it’s still not as safe as consumers believe it is (Michael Joseph Blaha, n.d.). Vaping products sold in Canada do not yet encounter the same restrictions as Tobacco advertising does, and in many cases sell its appeal on pleasant flavors such as cotton candy, watermelon wave, and banana nut bread (Pink Spot Vapors, 2013). Restrictions are being proposed, and slowly enacted, as the government tries to catch up to the creative loopholes found by the manufacturers.
Youth and adolescents who are exposed to vaping ads are twice as likely to start vaping within the next several years (Jenco, 2019). In 2019 27.5% of high school students had used e-cigarettes in the past month, compared to 1.5% in 2011 (Truth Initiative, 2019).
E-cigarette/vaping companies have rapidly increased their advertising; in the US 6.4 million was spent in 2011, in 2014 it had increased to 115 million (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, n.d.) and in 2017 up to 718.32 million (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, n.d.). In doing this the youth and vulnerable’ s exposure to e-cigarette ads has skyrocketed, and so has their use. In the Greater Vancouver Regions, some of the most noticeable nondigital ads, attempting to make vaping seem cool, have been placed in Vancouver Skytrain stations. These are high traffic areas that target their ideal youth demographic, even though they publicly state they are not marketing to youth.
Health Canada has invested more than $9 million in a public education campaign (Health Canada, 2019) to combat the rapid increase in young users. New regulations are being proposed that will prohibit the advertising of these products where they can be seen by youth. These focus on helping youth understand that vaping is similar to smoking and can result in addiction and other health risks.
A variety of primary stakeholders exist in this matter, with very high monetary stakes, starting with the manufacturers and their investors. It is estimated that the global vaping market was valued at about $14.05 billion in 2018 and is expected to grow to $29.39 billion at a growth rate of more than 20% through 2022 (The Business Research Company, 2019). When the health crises occurred in 2019 over JUUL, their parent company Altria Group stated it had devalued its investment in the company Juul Labs by $4.5 Billion (Robertson, 2019). Other primary stakeholders include distributors, retailers, and marketing companies.
One other primary stakeholder is the consumer. They have a stake in their freedom to make choices for themselves, but also a right to have the knowledge of how those products will impact them in both the short and long term. If we think back to the ’50s, smoking was marketed as being cool and in some cases were sold as “physician tested, approved” (HemOnc, 2009). A few decades later, reality sunk in as cancer and lung disease rates increased, and no one could argue any later that it wasn’t related. Even at the times of selling the image to the consumer that it was physician-approved or that it would make you feel like a sophisticated member of society, cigarette companies knew the truth. Vaping is now being sold to consumers as the “healthier choice”, but when in reality it likely will have the same outcome when the time has been told in a few decades. You can’t expect to put liquid-vapor in your lungs, designed for dry air, and expect no consequences, we are not fish swimming in the sea.
Parents, who in reality are more like secondary stakeholders, view themselves as the primary stakeholders. They are trying to keep their kids out of harm’s way and on the path to health and guiding their children through a world of knowledge being exposed to their children long before they are ready to process it. Advertising that includes everything from the Taboo – Naughty but Nice Show, Vaping, alcohol, and many others.
In 2004 It was estimated that the average child was exposed to more than 40,000 TV commercials a year (Dittmann, 2004). With the rapid growth of the internet, it is now estimated that the average American is exposed somewhere between 4,000 to 10,000 ads a day. While youth that is not allowed free time on the internet may not reach that amount, by the time a youth has a phone and is allowed access to the internet at free will, their numbers will match that (Simpson, 2017).
With this much information overload, something must be done. Unfortunately, shutting our children in a locked room with no outside world, only allowing in what we approve, is not a reality. As a result, children are confronted with the images of the Taboo Naughty but Nice Show highlighting the website myfreecams.com in living color at the Skytrain when going to school at 8 in the morning Monday-Friday. That image could tempt even a 6-year-old to type in that site when mom or dad isn’t looking over the shoulder.
Other more obvious secondary stakeholders include those impacted by the 2nd hand vaping smoke in public places, or even balconies of their own homes, and the various divisions of the government such as Health Canada, Minister of Health. It could be said that the medical support teams such as doctors and nurses. Our provincial medical systems are both primary and secondary stakeholders. As the wide variety of known, and yet to be identified, health consequences fall on their shoulders to try to diagnose and treat.
Even life and private health insurers are struggling with how to compute actuarial rates for e-cigarette users, as little is known about the long term effects of their use on users (Daniels, Paulson, Nabeshima, & Morris, 2018). Currently, there is a lack of data, there is no way to accurately price the mortality or longevity risks, and it likely will be a few more decades until the hard numbers are in.
Section 2. What does this mean to my family?
On a personal basis, our family consists of a variety of various stakeholders including the primary stakeholders of myself, the three boys, their partners, and my grandson Caleb. My oldest son and grandson have battled Asthma since infancy. Any kind of smoking or vaping, either first hand or secondary, would have an impact on their quality of life and health. Even though there is not enough known yet on the long term effects of vaping, it would be logical to assume there is a strong possibility that vaping with nicotine is linked to an increase of a variety of lung diseases (Aubrey, 2019).
My own personal experience put me in an obvious conflict of interest to support the vaping industry. Not just from being an ex-smoker many years ago, but also that my father and brother both passed away from lung cancer caused by a lifetime of smoking cigarettes. My father also was a Marijuana addict, although there seems to be a concerted effort to people that it is not addictive and safe, it is possible to have a marijuana use disorder (NIH, n.d.).
As our family has an increased risk for negative outcomes from smoking, vaping, or other things from both a sheer genetic factor in gene mutation for cancer (Cancer Center, n.d.), but also addiction. Taking the risk factors into consideration, our family chooses to avoid any and all forms of smoking any product.
Secondary stakeholders are neighbors, our friends, family physician, and other medical support teams, employers, co-workers, fellow transit riders, those we do volunteer work, our office environment, and health insurance providers.
One last bias that I hold personally is that the smell and taste of second hand vaping smoke results in a nauseated feeling; even the nonscented ones. I find that flavored vaping smoke travels further than someone who is smoking a traditional cigarette. As a result, if the party is within their legal rights, the only choice I have is to leave the area and enjoyment of anything that I am doing.
We have had one of our staff members attempt to try to hide vaping, using the nonflavored/scented variety, at his desk in the office. Once he was asked not to do it again, he chose to try to use the men’s room, until he was discovered. As a result, we were required to update our employee handbook to state vaping on the premises is not acceptable.
Section 3. What does this mean to my company?
Trying to market the tobacco industry, and related products such as vaping is like finding creative ways to make death appealing. Making one go against all logic and make an intentional choice they know will bring them harm, highlights the ability of a mind to be influenced by media, peer pressure. Tobacco companies must truly understand the behavior and psychological workings of the human, more than any other industry.
They must seek to research and understand the directness of the link between social stress factors and unhealthy biology choices occurring in lifestyle risk factors, such as increased rates of smoking and drinking that we often see in humans who are stuck in low-status situations (Sapolsky R. M., 2018).
In 2019, a sudden spike was seen in Vaping related severe lung disease and death (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020). As of Feb 18, 2020, a total of 2,807 cases of lung disease had been reported to the CDC, with at least 68 of those resulting in death. It was found that E-cigarette vapor can contain alternate harmful substances not traditionally found in tobacco smoke, such as Vitamin E acetate.
Vaping, much like smoking is a biopsychosocial disorder (Kassel & Shiffman, 2020), so to deal with the negative media and continue to find ways to undermine public health the tobacco industry developed The International Committee on Smoking Issues (Patricia A McDaniel, 2008).
As regulations and knowledge of health problems increase, companies expand their international operations to bring aggressive marketing techniques to countries with few restrictions and consumers with a lower cognitive understanding of the dangers (Patricia A McDaniel, 2008).
Tobacco industries battle consistently with changing regulations and recommendations, such as the CDC and FDA’s recommendation that Vitamin E acetate should not be added to any vaping product (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020). Should they choose to go along with the recommendation, they may appear as the good guy to the consumers that use them but have paused or considering pausing the use out of fear. When they are able to vape again without fear(even if they haven’t inhaled yet), it likely results in signaling the reward receptors in the consumers as they now have the anticipation of the “pleasure”, making the addiction harder to break (Sapolsky R. , 2011).
More and more often tobacco companies are also seeing cases of litigation. All ten provincial governments have filed “Medicaid” lawsuits against the Tobacco Distributors and their parents, jointly and severally, asserting claims in excess of C$500bn, plus interest and costs. (Norton Rose Fulbright, 2019). As a result, each of the main distributors (Imperial Tobacco, Rothmans, Benson & Hedges, and JTI-Macdonald) has been required to file for creditor protection.
As the public became outraged, it was in their best interest to publicly support increasing the minimum age to 21 in the United States. Altria’s chief executive, Howard Willard confirmed this when saying “We continue to believe that raising the legal minimum age to purchase all tobacco products to 21 at the federal and state levels is the most effective action to reverse the rise in youth vaping.” (Robertson, 2019).
Section 4. What does this mean to my country?
The government has several roles, first is that they do collect taxes on products, similar to Tobacco products. In 2019 in the US they expected to collect tax revenue of tobacco products amounts of 12.46 Billion (Statista, n.d.) and in Canada 8.3 Billion was collected (Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada, 2019). (Tax revenues for vaping products were not available or are combined in with the number)
However, in Canada, the healthcare costs of smoking amount to 6.5 Billion (Canadian Cancer Society, 2107), leaving 1.8 Billion in tax revenue to be used for other initiatives not directly related to smoking. In the spring of 2020, the tax rate in BC and AB will be set to 20% for all vaping products (A list of vaping regulations across Canada, 2020)
On the flip side, the government is expected to regulate the industry and all Canadian Provinces are taking action in imposing regulations and standards that vary from cutting nicotine contents, restricting flavors, health warnings, and strictly limiting promotion and advertising (A list of vaping regulations across Canada, 2020).
In some cases the government must step in and take steps to protect the general public, however, it must also consider the interests of the manufacturers of the products. On Jan 2, 2020, Trump banned some of the flavored e-cigarette products from the U.S. market (Ducharme, 2020). In Canada, companies can not promote flavors that could appeal to youth, such as candy, dessert, or soft drink flavors (Weeks, 2020). Nova Scotia and PEI moved forward with a full ban of any vaping product other than tobacco or unflavored e-cigarettes (Weeks, 2020).
Section 5. Media impact:
The medium is the message (McLuhan, 1964), as such the role media plays vary depending on who is receiving the messages and in what form. Digital media vs traditional media have varying impacts. In particular for teens, they are more vulnerable to the impacts of social media that promotes vaping (Digitale, 2020), and the more exposure to social media putting vaping in a positive light correlated with a higher likelihood to start vaping.
Media has many restrictions around what kind of advertising a manufacturer can do in regards to any type of tobacco advertising. Vape distributors have taken to a wide variety of platforms varying from traditional advertising through promotions on billboards in high traffic areas and transit to complex web-based computer algorithms to reach the exact market they believe they can impact.
However, these companies benefited from a loophole by paying influencers to promote both traditional tobacco products as well as e-cigarettes online (Rowell, 2020). Although both Facebook and Instagram have announced that branded content that promotes goods such as vaping, tobacco, or weapons will not be allowed, they failed to truly define what “Branded Content” is.
YouTube is another delivery method geared primarily towards youth, where the vast majority of information e-cigarettes promote their use and depict them as socially acceptable (Chuan Luo, 2014). YouTube offers the unique ability to let a brand make thousands of videos from one ad (Slefo, 2017), incredibly accurate targeting with the ability to provide metrics. It’s merger with Google, has allowed them to expand their custom affinity audience offering, using key search terms.
On other platforms such as Instagram and Facebook, the tobacco industry has also been linked to creating automated social media accounts (“bots”), which are behind a large portion of the marketing messages about vaping and e-cigarettes. Many of these promote the devices as a healthier alternative to smoking (Cerullo, 2019).
Vape distributors have also taken to traditional advertising through promotions on billboards in high traffic areas, as well as utilizing transit.
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