The international experience of regulating tobacco advertising 

When considering the problem of regulating tobacco advertising, it is necessary to take into account that basic knowledge about the extent that tobacco affects one's health was only provided by researchers in the 1960s. The awareness of tobacco-related harm makes it requisite that authorities adopt measures to reduce this harm. Among the considered policies, the regulation of tobacco advertising up to a complete ban is inevitably present. Because of a lack of experience in introducing such measures, it is difficult to estimate their efficiency and side effects. The most well-known venture of this kind is the ban on tobacco advertising that was approved in Norway in 1975, which was preceded with intensive debates. The study, which takes into account15 years of results of the tobacco advertising ban in Norway, has revealed that the arguments of the advertising supporters are inaccurate, and that the accepted decision was indeed valid. This positive experience has encouraged other countries to forbid tobacco advertising as well. These countries include Italy, Iceland, Finland, Portugal New Zealand, Australia, Thailand, France, Sweden, Turkey, Belgium, Poland, Ireland, Hungary, Malaysia, Denmark, Vietnam, Netherlands, Cyprus and others. The latest example is a ban on tobacco advertising in the United Kingdom, which entered into force on February 14, 2003. At the end of 2002, a Directive banning most kinds of tobacco advertising was adopted by the European Union. A report from the International Union against Cancer (UICC) concluded that the banning of advertising had been followed by a decrease in smoking on a scale that could not reasonably attributed to other factors (see Table 1).

Table 1. The effectiveness of tobacco advertising ban

It is worth pointing out that in all developed countries the process regulating tobacco advertising moved only to tougher regulations: from partial restrictions to a comprehensive ban, although on some occasions court decisions slowed this process down or took other forms. For example, when the Supreme Court of Canada abolished some key points of legislation on their advertising ban, the government decided to introduce such restrictions on all forms of advertising, so that, although tobacco advertising is formally allowed in Canada, it has become almost imperceptible. 

The generalization of global experience is expressed in the text of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control: " Each Party shall, in accordance with its constitution or constitutional principles, undertake a comprehensive ban of all tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship".

A history of tobacco advertising regulation in Ukraine