|
The Tobacco Toll |
|
  Friday . Nov 21 |
|
And kids rallied in ever-growing numbers to tell Big Tobacco to stay out of their lives. "Every time a kid stands up to the tobacco industry, they’re saying, ‘You will not manipulate us. You will not take our health and our future in order to get our money,’" said Deanna Durrett, the 1999 CAMPAIGN FOR TOBACCO-FREE KIDS’ Youth Advocate of the Year, who hails from Louisville, Kentucky - the state with the nation’s highest tobacco-use rate. Legislatively, the spotlight in 1999 shone on the 50 state capitals as governors and legislators debated how to spend each state’s share of the historic $246 billion settlement with tobacco companies. Four states settled individually and 46 others joined the Master Settlement Agreement reached in November 1998, ending the states’ lawsuits against the tobacco companies to recover tobacco-related health care costs. State officials said their tobacco suits were aimed at protecting children from becoming addicted. However, a report by the CAMPAIGN FOR TOBACCO-FREE KIDS and the American Heart Association found that many states were failing to keep that promise by allocating too little or none of the settlement funds for tobacco prevention programs. The report found that of the 29 states that have dealt with the tobacco settlement money in 1999, only eight - Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Vermont, New Jersey, Wisconsin and Washington -- have provided enough new funding for truly comprehensive tobacco prevention and cessation programs. Mississippi continued its innovative pilot program for prevention. Only 10 other states have dedicated funds for tobacco prevention programs, but each of these will spend far less than the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends for an effective program. The remaining states have not dedicated any funds to protecting their children from tobacco. Underscoring the benefits of comprehensive prevention programs, teen smoking rates dropped in the few states that already have them. In Massachusetts, smoking rates among high school students declined from 35.7 percent to 30.3 percent between 1995 and 1999 - after the program was launched in 1993. In Florida, smoking rates among middle school students plummeted by 19 percent less than a year after the state started an innovative prevention program. The courts also saw substantial tobacco-related activity in 1999: The U.S. Supreme Court on December 1, 1999, heard oral arguments in a case to determine whether the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) can regulate tobacco products. The Court is expected to rule by summer 2000.
"If successful, the rule will result in the first nationwide, comprehensive program to reduce the availability of tobacco products to children. It will eliminate those forms of marketing that the tobacco companies have used effectively for decades to make their products appealing to our kids," said CAMPAIGN President Matthew L. Myers.
"The jury decision in Miami represents the most serious court loss ever suffered by the tobacco industry," said Myers. "The jury found a widespread pattern of lies and willful deception by the tobacco industry. This verdict will almost certainly be regarded as a landmark in finally holding the tobacco industry accountable for the damage it does in addicting children and in causing tobacco-related disease." The Tobacco Wars continued outside the legislative and legal arenas as well. Kids’ growing concern about tobacco was underscored by record participation in the fourth annual Kick Butts Day, the nationwide initiative that makes kids leaders and advocates in the fight against youth tobacco use. Launched in 1996 with only eight events, Kick Butts Day on April 14, 1999, grew to more than 1,200 events in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and Japan. National leaders who participated included Vice President Gore and two members of President Clinton’s cabinet: Secretary of Education Richard Riley and Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala. Tobacco companies responded to the increasing pressure with multimillion dollar public relations and corporate image campaigns. Philip Morris, the nation’s largest cigarette company and maker of Marlboro, the best-selling cigarette among young smokers, led the effort with television commercials touting its charitable activities, or urging kids to "Think, Don’t Smoke." Philip Morris also acknowledged for the first time, on its Internet site, that "there is overwhelming medical and scientific consensus" that smoking causes cancer, emphysema, and other serious diseases. Twenty-six national public health and education groups responded by calling on Philip Morris to back up its words. "Your public admission brings with it the responsibility for action - not just words - to begin to reduce the more than 400,000 annual deaths from tobacco in the U.S.," the groups wrote. They urged Philip Morris and other tobacco companies to: end opposition to reasonable regulation of tobacco products by the Food and Drug Administration; drop their lawsuit against the 1996 FDA regulations; stop all marketing practices that impact youth; take action to reduce the ease with which kids illegally obtain cigarettes; and revise their "youth anti-smoking" advertising campaign to state the cigarette smoking kills and is addictive. "The scientific facts on smoking haven’t changed in 30 years, but the political climate for Philip Morris has," said American Heart Association CEO M. Cass Wheeler. "The company’s reputation is in tatters, and juries across the country have been expressing their outrage at Philip Morris’ wrongdoing. Philip Morris had very little choice but to change its tune on the scientific evidence about the dangers of smoking." |
rom the Congress to the statehouse, the White House to the courthouse, the Tobacco Wars were anything but over in 1999. While the tobacco companies made no significant changes to their marketing practices, the battle for public opinion took on a new twist when they launched multi-million dollar campaigns to improve their tarnished reputations.
|
|
