Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank goodness, the era of tobacco advertising is finally coming to an end.

Although he may not realise it, when Richard Doll asks, "why this evil business was allowed to continue for so long", he is questioning the very foundations of our social and economic order, our understanding of human nature, and our ability  to survive, let alone prosper, into the next Century (Last gasp: the best minds in advertising launch their cigarette campaigns to end all campaigns, 8 February 2003; Richard Doll: 'Why was this evil business allowed to continue for so long?, 8 February 2003).

The simply answer to Prof. Doll's question is that there was such a lot of money to be made from it - not just by the tobacco industry, but also by the advertising agencies, the media, and all those who accepted sponsorship.

Which poses another question: Why was money making, jobs and sponsorship, as important as they are, put before the health of the nation to the extent that 1000's of lives were sacrificed every year, when a foreign power, if it were to persist in killing just 100's of our citizens, would be faced with a declaration of war?

Another important question is: Why do so many people even today persist in smoking when knowledge about the terrible harm it causes is so certain and so well known? Part of the answer is, of course, "addiction", but that can hardly be the whole answer.

I believe that our future, certainly that of our children and coming generations, depends on us recognising the correct answers to these questions - sooner rather than later - because the promotion of tobacco products is just one particularly salient example of the detrimental, potentially catastrophic, hold that economic interests can and often do have over the whole of society and the direction in which it is heading.

There are many other, less obvious, mainly because so normal, but in the long-term even more harmful examples all around us.

Take the automobile and air-travel industries, for example, which even at current levels of individual motorisation and air travel are placing a non-sustainable strain on our planet's finite resources and carrying capacity. Yet these industries are set to go on expanding indefinitely, providing cars and air travel to an ever increasing proportion of Earth's growing population. 

A child (with its unconditioned eyes) can see that this is completely crazy, just as crazy as it is to promote cigarette smoking when it is known to be addictive and to kill thousands of people every year (in fact, millions! world-wide, but that is too mind-boggling even to contemplate - which is perhaps another reason why it has been allowed to continue for so long).