Cross Cultural Prospectives

Cross-Cultural Perspectives-Philip Morris

Ethics and Social Responsibility ETH/316

Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the world, for that reason alone it is one of the most controversial and ethical issues of our time. Since the 1960s, smoking was manufactured as the “cool” thing to do and even promoted by celebrities such as Fred Flintstone; nearly half of all adults were cigarette smokers. At that time, cigarettes were inexpensive and easily accessible. Today, states like New York City have banned smoking in most bars and other public places in an effort to control and discourage smoking. Currently, one pack of cigarettes costs as much as 12 dollars a pack for popular brands, such as Marlboro because of the high sin taxes placed on cigarettes by states to limit smoking. This paper will discuss specifically the Philip Morris organization and the role they play in the smoking crisis and, the recent ethical issues that occurred in 2010 as a result of the Current Television Network’s Vanguard documentary titled “Sex, Lies, & Cigarettes.”

In summer of 2010 a YouTube video of a two-year-old baby smoking cigarettes made international headlines. Many believed the video was a fake because how could a parent allow their infant child to smoke cigarettes? It turns out that little Aldi Suganda was not the only smoking baby captured on video, but he became the most famous. Aldi Suganda’s video and background was highlighted in the Vanguard documentary that explores how big tobacco companies like Philip Morris have targeted and bombarded poor developing countries like Aldi’s home in Jakarta, Indonesia. Indonesia is the fourth most populated country in the world where one in four boys between the ages of 13-15 are smokers and at the time of the documentary, 99 percent of the population of Jakarta was smokers (2010). In China there are about 350 million smokers (about 25 percent of the population) making up one-third of the world’s...