Tobacco ads may be coming back to Canadian magazines

A ruling against the tobacco industry in the Supreme Court may mean that tobacco advertising, missing from magazines for years (a ban held partly responsible for the final demise pf the so-called weekend "roto" magazines like Today) may re-emerge, according to a story in the Globe and Mail.

In striking down the tobacco industry's appeal to remove an advertising ban yesterday, the Supreme Court actually opened the door to new advertising spending by clarifying its earlier restrictions.

Those clarifications prompted a lawyer for Imperial Tobacco to predict millions of advertising dollars will now be spent on behalf of the industry.

The companies are allowed to advertise in places where only people over the age of 18 are permitted, meaning bars and casinos are now fertile advertising grounds for cigarette makers. Magazines whose readerships are more than 85 per cent adult can also run tobacco ads.

However, the ads can only showcase the product - they can't market a lifestyle or use any approach that would make cigarettes or cigars appealing to minors.

A lawyer for the law firm representing the tobacco companies said a likely ad would show the product and perhaps highlight that it was Canadian-made.

"You're not going to see TV ads, you're not going to see billboards or radio spots. What you're going to see is print ads in very limited areas," said Simon Potter, a lawyer with McCarthy Tétrault.

The court decision was hailed by the Canadian Cancer Society for not overturning the previous bans on advertising. However, Rob Cunningham, a lawyer for the society, said the new cigarette ads are troubling and may come as a shock to the public after so many years of the industry not advertising.

"I think the public is going to be very surprised to see something they haven't experienced in years," Mr. Cunningham said.

Ad industry officials say it's uncertain where the dollars will flow. While magazines and newspapers must have at least 85 per cent of their readers over the age of 18 to run ads, how those readership numbers are tabulated and accounted for is unclear.