Public Opinion, Public Policy, and Smoking by Marshall Thomas R.;

Author:Marshall, Thomas R.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Studying Public Opinion and

Federal Decisions on Smoking

As this discussion suggests, tobacco control advocates sometimes successfully changed federal policy toward smoking but at other times the tobacco industry has prevailed, at least for a time, and a pro-tobacco status quo continued. Some policy decisions are made by the elective branches, Congress and the White House, and others by the federal agencies or by the federal courts. Some, but not all these policy decisions receive widespread attention from the media, from the American public, and from pollsters. Some decisions are far-reaching, others narrowly-focused. The tobacco industry, its lobbyists, and its lawyers fought long, hard, and expensively against some of these policy decisions, but were divided on or even acquiesced to others.

This chapter now asks two simple but important questions. First, how often do tobacco-related policies agreed with American public opinion? Second, does American public opinion influence tobacco policy-making?

American pollsters often ask poll questions on tobacco-related issues, especially when an issue is currently being debated or soon after a policy decision occurs. On low-profile controversies pollsters may ask only a single poll question, if any at all, but on high-profile controversies such as the Master Settlement Agreement, pollsters ask dozens of questions. Comparing carefully-measured poll questions with a final policy decision makes it possible to judge whether or not a decision is consistent with public opinion. Herein fifty-nine federal-level tobacco control policy decisions are compared (or “matched”) with timely nationwide polls; each poll to policy match is classified as either “consistent” or as “inconsistent” with public or in a few cases as “unclear.”[18] A consistent policy decision is one that agrees, in substance, with a timely nationwide poll majority (or occasionally with a plurality). An inconsistent policy decision is one that disagrees with a current poll majority or plurality. In a few cases of evenly-divided or inconsistent poll results, the poll to policy match is classified as unclear.

As an example of a consistent decision, consider the 1965 requirement that a warning label (at that time: “Caution: Cigarette Smoking May Be Hazardous to Your Health”) appear on cigarette packages. Several poll questions showed that most Americans favored a package warning. In an industry-sponsored poll conducted a day before the 1964 Surgeon General advisory committee’s report was released, a 65 percent to 22 percent majority favored a warning. That figure jumped to 72 percent to 21 percent in favor a few days later and was 64 percent to 25 percent in favor six weeks later (Marshall 2015). Other polls show the same result. In the federal government’s fall 1964 Use of Tobacco survey 60 percent of Americans favored a package warning, and in spring 1966 75 percent of Americans did. In a December 1966 Harris poll a 76 percent to 10 percent majority favored the warning; a 57 percent to 32 percent majority said that it was not necessary to place the warning where it could be more easily seen. Accordingly, the 1965 package warning requirement is classified as “consistent” with public opinion.

Some tobacco control policies are inconsistent with American public opinion.

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