Report: Big Tobacco still targets kids
Kylie Saari — Staff WriterArticle Photos
FAIRMONT - The brightly colored boxes and flip-top containers promise cherry, chocolate, mint and grape flavors. What they deliver are highly addictive, kid-attracting, disease-inducing tobacco in the form of mini-cigars.
That is according to a report released by ClearWay Minnesota and the Association for Nonsmokers - Minnesota, two nonprofit organizations dedicated to a smoke-free state.
Unfiltered, the first report of its kind, was released Wednesday and calls the tobacco companies out for alleged continued advertising to kids and teens.
The flavored mini-cigars out-maneuver laws that prohibit cigarette companies from mixing child-friendly flavors into their products. Mini-cigars are the same size as cigarettes, come in similar packaging, but are exempt from the laws simply because they are have tobacco in their wrapping, making them cigars, not cigarettes.
"People think it isn't an issue anymore," said Mike Sheldon, communications manager with ClearWay. "They are aggressively marketing to capture a new generation of smokers."
Besides the colorful packaging and candy-inspired flavors, the report says tobacco industry giants have spun their ban from television and billboard advertising into new public relations opportunities.
They have embarked on what Sheldon calls image campaigns. Tobacco giant Phillip Morris spent a reported $100 million to advertise the fact that it was a good corporate citizen - more than the $75 million it donated to organizations such as 4-H and Big Brothers Big Sisters.
Supporting youth programs is a way for companies to introduce their brand to youngsters, who will then see the advertising in gas stations and grocery stores as positive associations, according to the report.
The problem, according to Sheldon, is that smoking and smokeless tobacco products cost the state of Minnesota an estimated $2 billion in preventable, tobacco-related disease. Worldwide, 5 million people die tobacco-related deaths each year.
Betsy Brock, director of research with the Association for Nonsmokers - Minnesota, said the groups have noticed a dramatic increase of smokeless tobacco products, including mint-like tobacco candy, dissolvable strips and toothpick-sized sticks.
"They are making smokeless tobacco more socially acceptable," she said, marketing it as tobacco that can be used when consumers can't smoke, such as on airplanes, theaters and workplaces.
In addition, the tobacco companies run smoking cessation programs, ostensibly to prove they care about their customers, but according to the non-profit report, it is simply a way to skirt criticism and further regulation.
"Most people think (quitting smoking) is a willpower issue," Sheldon said, "but there is a $200 million industry trying to keep you from quitting."
Both groups encourage people to notice advertisments for smoking-related products.
"If we stop paying attention," says the report, "we're just making it easier for them to keep smokers hooked and to addict new ones."
According to the report, 634,000 Minnesotan adults and 85,000 middle and high school students smoke.
To view the full report, go www.clearwaymn.org
