If we were to look at The Truth Campaign through a functionalist lens, we first have to understand what functionalists concern themselves with. Functionalists look at social problems, institutions, or other social structures and determine their "function," or what they are trying to achieve. Taking the The Truth Campaign, for example, the function of Truth is to promote public health by decreasing the rate of smoking. The decrease of smoking is also the manifest function, or the intended function, of the Truth campaign. In this regard, the campaign has been successful: the rate of smoking has decreased by 15 percent from 1997, the time Truth was formed, to 2004. Of course, causation is nearly impossible to prove, but at the very least there is a correlation. In this way, the campaign is functional: it is fulfilling its niche in the social milieu.
However, if we look at the manifest functions of anti-smoking commercials, we must also look at the latent functions, or the unintended functions. The most predominant, at least in my eyes, is less quantifiable than such an easily-published decrease in smoking rate. It is the effect of villainizing those who do smoke: you cannot smoke within twenty-five feet of a public building (we don't want you here); you are contributing to the funds of companies that are responsible for nearly 500,000 deaths a year in the U.S. alone. That is quite the burden to carry. As a person who has chose to enjoy cigarettes, at least for the time being, it is impossible not to experience the ostracizing effects of the anti-smoking mindset: glares, downcast eyes, questioning remarks, exclamatory facts about death, or the ever-simple, "You cannot smoke here," all attributes to it. I'm not saying second-hand some cannot be detrimental to those who do not chose it for themselves, but the fact that a certain amount of otherization seems undeniable: smokers are latently being made villains.
Whether or not a negative latent function means that the system of public health policies (i.e. The Truth Campaign), means it is dysfunctional, I am not sure. Indeed, the latent function could possibly be declared beneficial to some parties such as states, who are able to levy increasing cigarette taxes (302.5 cents per pack in Washington, as compared to 17.0 cents per pack in Missouri). It seems logical that a state would be able to put in place a higher cigarette tax the more the activity was demonized, but perhaps that is a little to "Conflict Theory-like" for a post about functionalism as it relates to anti-smoking commercials.
To end this rather abruptly, and perhaps prematurely, anti-smoking commercials seem to be functional in their pursuit: they play a part in decreasing smoking rates throughout the United States. As with anything there will always be an argument for why something could possibly be bad, in this case demonizing citizens who chose to smoke, but it is neither up to me or within my power to decide whether the cost outweighs the benefits - perhaps the two are incomparable and require two different paradigms to weight.
Sources:
Marc Kaufman (2007, November 5) The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/08/AR2007110801094.html
The Associated Press (2011, September 7) The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/07/us/07brfs-SMOKINGRATED_BRF.html
No Author Listed (2011, March 21) Center for Disease Control. http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/health_effects/tobacco_related_mortality/
No Author, (2011, March) Federation of Tax Administration. http://www.taxadmin.org/fta/rate/cigarette.pdf
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