i don't get this at all. the state bans advertising, subsidizes patches, and trots out a policy statement and somehow this counts as a move against profits? how? in order to believe this, you also have to believe that (a) profits derive from advertising (as opposed to, say, labor or positions in financial markets)--that is, that reduced advertising will reduce sales and reducing the number of units sold will necessarily crimp profits; (b) that tobacco companies don't also own lots of other stuff (phillip morris owns kraft foods, post, oscar meyer, maxwell house among others)--with which to compensate for any moves "against" their tobacco products; in short, you have to believe that moving "against" tobacco profits is somehow meaningful when new labor has otherwise endorsed the value of current
corporate organizations of everything, and the profit motive in general.
so, sure, i'll bet tobacco companies are crying crocodile tears, but why wouldn't they? they have everything to gain by doing so.
as in the united states, this move seems less guided by a "social" model of health as a desire to socialize the costs of treatment (i.e. to generate revenue): since new labor has cravenly given into the ideological demand not to have a genuine welfare state, it now claims to want to promote public health. but, although that seems more like an ideal on the horizon in the uk than the usa, you have to wonder, if that's true, why they aren't subsidizing or paying for people's AIDS cocktails, among other things.
best christian