Thank You For Smoking: Commercial Law & Morality

Thank You for Smoking is a parody on the tobacco industry and the way it used crazy spins to try to stop audiences from believing that tobacco is really is bad for the health of consumers. The film focuses on tobacco lobbyist Nick Naylor and follows him throughout talk shows, hush money visits, and journalism faux pas. Naylor starts as a pretty shady guy, but throughout the movie he goes endures a small character arc and ends up quitting the tobacco game.

In the beginning of the film, Naylor made a claim to his son that will be the focus of this post, “If you argue correctly, you’re never wrong." The issue with this statement is that it's a fallacy, but this may be how many in the legal world operate because sometimes the law and the practice of it may conflict with personal or societal norms of morality. For example, there's the application of constitutional law, specifically the laws against prior restraint. Prior restraint is when a governmental entity prohibits an American citizen from exercising their First Amendment rights before the action happens. The federal government is not allowed to do this, however, a corporation is fully able to do so. An example of this was when social media organizations like Twitter and Facebook started removing individual posts and accounts that did not align with mainstream conversations concerning separate issues. The claims given to justify these removals were that the users violated "community guidelines."

The continuous action feels wrong, various consumers of these companies disagree with the action taken, but what these organizations were doing is not against the law. Most think it's morally low, but it isn't unlawful. The same idea can be applied to what took place throughout the Thank You For Smoking movie and throughout advertising in the tobacco industry. For example, in the movie, Vermont Senator Ortolan Finisterre tried to pass a law saying that all tobacco manufacturers had to include a label that says "Poison" on their tobacco products. The issue with making this a reality is that congressional intervention in commercial advertising is a direct violation of First Amendment rights. Since the Santa Clara case of 1886, any corporation in the US is counted as a person with full rights, therefore, the government cannot infringe on the speech used on their products. Commercial speech is protected because of the ruling in the Virginia Board of Pharmacy case of 1976, and unless it can be proven that the government has lawful cause to control the speech used, it simply cannot do it. Though many parents or anti-smoking advocates may be for it, and there may even be smokers who would be advocates for it, it is hard to saw that it is not unconstitutional. Audiences may believe that it is the "right thing to do," but it would be hard to prove the government should be legally allowed to do it according to the law. A lawyer can argue how the government cannot do this, but it does not mean that what he or she is advocating for is "right," if you are considering it from a specific moral standpoint.

The takeaway from this is that laws and morality do not always mix. Part of this is because moral compass is not always unanimously adopted, and what one thinks is fair is not what the next may think is fair. On the flip side, just because it is legal, it does not mean that it is right. It is difficult to say if these disparities will ever dissipate, but it is something to keep in mind when you see commercial advertising.