Sincerity is a trait rarely ascribed to the tobacco industry, unless the context is congressmen from tobacco districts fighting higher taxes on tobacco.
But for several years, an organization called the Family Course Consortium in Washington has run advertisements and public service announcements urging young people not to smoke.
One ad appeared in a recent edition of U.S. News & World Report, with the headline, “Smoking Should Not Be A Part Of Growing Up.” Course stands for “Communication through Open minds, Understanding, Respect and Self-Esteem,” and the ad included a coupon for a free booklet for parents, written in English or Spanish and called, “Tobacco: Helping Youth Say No.”
What makes this series of admonitions so intriguing, amid the many anti-smoking messages echoing around the country, is that the consortium operates mainly on a grant from the Tobacco Institute, the lobbying arm of the American tobacco industry.
Never mind that laws in all 50 states prohibit the sale of tobacco products to people younger than 18. Or that the Office of Technology Assessment, a congressional agency, determined that in 1990, smoking-related illness accounted for almost 20 percent of deaths in the United States.
Or that the Environmental Protection Agency has designated second-hand smoke a cancer-causing agent. Or that organizations like the Coalition on Smoking or Health have been loud and aggressive in their anti-smoking activities.
An average annual decline in smoking of 2 to 3 percent for more than 10 years in the U.S. would suggest that at least some people are heeding the chorus of warnings.
Yet to have voices of the tobacco industry joining the fight strikes the anti-smoking forces as disingenuous at best, dishonest at worst.
“It’s the ultimate hypocrisy,” said Matthew L. Myers, counsel to the Coalition on Smoking or Health.
Like other critics of the tobacco industry, Myers contended that if the industry were truly committed to discouraging young people from smoking, tobacco companies would halt advertising and marketing campaigns directed at them.
He cited R.J. Reynolds Co.’s use of the cartoon character Joe Camel to sell Camel cigarettes and Philip Morris Cos.’ use of the Marlboro Adventure Team as a promotional vehicle to sell its leading brand, Marlboro.
These concepts, Myers said, “are uniquely appealing to children.” He said that if tobacco companies were sincere about convincing young people not to smoke, “they would adjust their advertising to appeal primarily to adults.”
The Tobacco Institute has grown accustomed to that kind of criticism but claims the consortium’s campaign has succeeded nonetheless, with requests for nearly 330,000 copies of the booklet since December 1990, when the campaign began.
Walker Merryman, a vice president of the Tobacco Institute, defended the program, saying that young people need constant advice about making prudent decisions on a variety of issues, including drinking, sex and smoking.
The campaign, he said, “puts teeth” into industry policy that it neither wants nor encourages young people to smoke.
Past 18, young people become fair game for cigarette-makers, who have been aggressively trying in recent months to reverse the decline of smoking by lowering prices for premium cigarettes such as Marlboro and Camel.
Therein lies the rub to the anti-smoking factions.
“They just can’t speak out of both sides of their mouth,” Myers said. “Every time the industry is attacked for something, like using Joe Camel, the industry brings out a variation of its advertising series. It just doesn’t wash at all.”
