A Study On The Tobacco Control Policy In The United States(1960s-1990s)

Today, tobacco is the leading preventable cause of death in the world. In order to protect people from smoking-related death, the U.S. Government has taken some actions on tobacco control since 1960s. At the end of the 20th century, America has obtained much significant results and the per capital tobacco consumption declined a lot in United States. Exploring the tobacco control policy in USA, can provide some lessons to Chinese anti-smoking activists. In addition, in consideration of our explorations and studies about America’s tobacco control policy—ittle, simple and not enough comprehensive—I will make good use of numerous sophisticated research achievements in U.S, represent a clear evolution about America’s tobacco control policy, investigate several factors effecting the implement of these policies, and reach a convincing conclusion at the end.From the perspective of history, this article is mainly reveal the evolution and development of the U.S. Government’s tobacco control policy, at the same time, combining with the knowledge of the Medicine, Politics, Economics, Litigation Law, study the effect of tobacco control policy, and reflect some social and cultural values about smoking. The full text is divided into five parts:The first part is the introduction, mainly on current situation of tobacco research, the purpose and methodology of this paper.The second section describes the background of U.S Government’s tobacco control policy-making. Why U.S Government decided to interfere with the tobacco market? There are four aspects for that:the smoking prevalence in USA during the first half of the 20 century, the ideological foundation of tobacco control, the development of science and technology after the Second World War, and the smoking-attributable economic cost.The third part is the main part. I’ll introduce the U.S. Government’s major tobacco control policy and its effect according to the category. These policies introduced in this chapter include:the marketing policies of tobacco products, clean indoor air restrictions, reducing the supply of tobacco to youth, taxing tobacco and tobacco tort litigation. Among them, the first policy was introduced in 1960s,the second one was put forward in 1980s, preventing minors from smoking was the U.S. government’s primary mission in 1990s, the last two policies have played roles throughout the second half of the 20th century.Part IV explores some issues which influence the implementation of tobacco control policy, such as the debate between liberals and advocates of authority, the strong influence of tobacco industry. For example, does the U.S. Government have the right to regulate smoking to secure the public’s health? If the answer is yes, the policy debate becomes when, how, and under what circumstances the Government should exercise that power? Affecting by the American tobacco industry, how should the Government balance the conflict between public health and economic interests?The fifth sector is the conclusion of the article. First, I represent a brief review of the evolution of tobacco control policy in the second half of the 20th century, and then, point out a number of important factors affecting the implementation of these policies. As supplement, I introduce some new initiatives which the U.S. Government has adopted to reduce tobacco consumption in the last decade.In my opinion, the debate about smoking go beyond the realm of biomedical research, but also was shaped by the meaning of cigarette in American culture, the nature of the tobacco industry, and government. Besides, public attitude towards smoking is another important factor affecting the implementation of tobacco control policy. In the consideration of all the factors above, the Government will adopt multi-facetted approach to reduce tobacco consumption effectively.