ESSAY

Essay

Essay

The primary goal of the majority of the tobacco control community is to reduce the morbidity and mortality related to tobacco. Though individual strategies on how to accomplish this goal may vary considerably, this common thread is why individuals self identify as a member of the tobacco control community, as opposed to other professional affiliations (Yach 2008: 166). This goal can be considered an effort to do good. Therefore, beneficence—that is, the duty to act for the benefit of others—could be seen as the overriding ethical principle for the tobacco control community. By simply emphasising this point, it will allow the community to challenge the industry's frame that the ultimate goal of the tobacco control community is to defeat the tobacco industry, protect the financial health of our programmes, or socially control the public. (Jacobson 2009: 123)

Non-maleficence—the duty to do no harm—has played an increasingly important role in the tobacco control community with the debate over harm reduction. Many in the tobacco control community are leery of accepting proposed harm reducing products out of fear that they could have a negative population-wide health impact due to increased initiation and decreased quitting arising from public misperceptions of the products. (Cohen et al.2010: 152) Even beyond harm reduction, it is important for the tobacco control community to ensure that risks have been thoughtfully considered and that unintended consequences are minimised when it develops new programmes and policies. Inattentiveness to negative consequences is ethically risky and could allow the community to be characterised as unconcerned. For example, the negative consequences of increased tobacco taxation on low income populations should be thoughtfully considered so as not to appear that the community is insensitive to the needs of this population. (Pertschuk 2010: 244)

The harms incurred by tobacco are not felt equally by all ...