Joe Camel Takes Heat From Doctors In U.S.

ATLANTA (AP) - The number of American youths taking up smoking as a daily habit jumped 73 per cent between Joe Camel’s debut in 1988 and 1996, the U.S. government said yesterday.

The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said tobacco ads that rely heavily on giveaways and kid-friendly cartoons are partly to blame.

More than 1.2 million Americans under 18 started smoking daily in 1996, up from 708,000 in 1988, the CDC estimated.

The rate at which teens became smokers also increased, climbing 50 per cent. In 1996, 77 of every 1,000 nonsmoking teens picked up the habit. In 1988, the rate was 51 per 1,000.

‘It’s terrible news," said Dr. Gary Giovino, chief epidemiologist for the CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health.

"There’s a lot of important things to consider, which include the increase in tobacco ads that have a youth focus. The appearance of tobacco smoking in the media has just skyrocketed lately."

The Tobacco Institute and R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., the cigarette maker that introduced Joe Camel, had no immediate comment.

The study was based on surveys of 78,330 Americans ages 12 to 66 conducted by the CDC between 1994 and 1997. Researchers extrapolated nationwide estimates from that sample.

In calculations back to 1965, the CDC estimated that the rate for beginning smokers peaked in 1977, when 67 of every 1,000 potential smokers developed a habit. The lowest rate -- 44 per 1,000 -- was in 1983.
(Ed. note: Teen marijuana use supposedly peaked in 1979. The lowest year was supposedly 1991. Now adults were arrested for tobacco during this time. The parallels are not exact, but the only advertisements for marijuana come from the prohibitionist propaganda that keeps telling kids about how they shouldn’t do it.)

Daily smoking rates begin increasing steadily again in 1988, the same year R.J. Reynolds introduced Joe Camel in its advertising, the CDC said.

Copyright 1998 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

October 2, 1998
From the Associated Press

SENATOR BLASTS NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL OFFICE FOR USING TOBACCO AD COMPANY

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The White House anti-drug office has decided to award an advertising contract to a company that handles publicity for cigarette brands, the Los Angeles Times reported today.

Bates USA also works for Brown and Williamson's Lucky Strike cigarette brand. Industry sources say Bates has just won accounts worth $50 million to advertise the company's Kool and Capri brands, the Times said.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said the decision to hire Bates is a ``direct contradiction to what the government is trying to do -- it's hypocrisy.''

His criticism was included in a letter to Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who heads the office.

``It is inconceivable to me that the Office of National Drug Control Policy has disbursed millions of tax dollars for marketing efforts to deter our nation's children from using illicit drugs, including tobacco, to an agency which represents one of the largest tobacco companies, Brown and Williamson,'' McCain wrote.

McCain chairs the Senate Commerce Committee and was the lead sponsor of a Senate bill aimed at reducing teen smoking. Tobacco companies spent more than $40 million on ads opposing the legislation, which died this year.

Officials at McCaffrey's office said federal procurement rules prohibit the government from limiting bidding to companies that eschew tobacco clients.

``There's no legal way that the government could preclude any vendor from bidding on this,'' said Alan Leavitt, chief of the national youth anti-drug media campaign.