Tobacco-Control Legislation, Public Health and Sport Sponsorship

This paper examines the international development of regulations restricting tobacco sponsorship and assesses their effects on tobacco marketing and public health. Several factors are found to compromise the effectiveness of sponsorship regulations, including the transnational structure of the tobacco industry, growing opportunities for tobacco marketing and sponsorship internationally, and the development of new media technologies – such as virtual billboards, Direct Broadcast television and the World Wide Web – that facilitate regulatory compliance at the same time that they enable global reach for sponsorship programs. An alternative regulatory approach is proposed that requires ‘equal time’ for anti-smoking advertisements as for tobacco-sponsorship advertisements.