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Mr. Timothy J. Muri~s Page 3 Apriil 15, 1952' cancery, heart d'isease and' shortened'' life-expectancy. Those facts demonstrate that the exiisting warning is doing,its job, described by th~eCommissi'on a& servi~ngto~ "'alert"" consumers tothehealthh~azard'sof smoking. Your comments about the "information market"" suggest an unrealistic expectation of what a Iimitedlinformation tool like an advertising disclosure can be expected to accomplish. The proper purpose, and the only reaListic purpose, of an advertising disclosure is not to serve as alcomprehensive public information program1but,, rather, isto:serve as a:remind'er, or alert, as the!Commission has properly called i~t, to rei'nforce the public information programs con- d'.ucted by those whose.business it is to do so. The task of communicating,specific health information to the public is properly one to be performed by government and private, health agencies. "°• . it remains unquestionablythe responsibility of healithloffieials toi'nsure that smokers and potential smokers aree adequately informed of'the!hazard'.s," 1979 Report of the!Surgeon; General,, Preface,, p. xiv. As noted in that Report, p. 19-9, those agencies have, in fact, been cond'ucting,a "public healthicampailgn; against ci;garettes"'wh,ichi"has produced notable changes in publlilc awareness of the health consequences of smoking." Renewed'ev!i'dence of the effectiveness of that campaign was furnished'bythe stunni'ng press coverage given to the recent pubI'ilcation of the Surgeon,Generali's 1982 Report on.Smoking and Health~. For example, the Report wa&prominently featured' in every TV network newscast, was the subject of'a half-hour special report on ABC's "Night hine,," and' was head'liined~ in, & si'x-column, spread'across.the top of the front page of the WashingtonPost. The conclusions d'rawn 1!ast year in the FTC Staff Report about thee inadequate level of public information on smoking.andihealth were repud'iated': in his congressional testimony last month.by Mr. Roper,,the man on whose studies those conclusions were largely based. I wouldd uwrge you to take a csitical look at the record, including,the comments submitted to:the Commissi;on on the Staff Report, before jumping,on the rotational-warning,bandwagon and! advocating more government action to remedy ainon-existent problem. Sincerely yours,.

Mt. Timothy J. Muris Page 2 A'pril1 15, 198'2 The 1981 agreement resulted from formal proceed'ings initiated by the Commission, was induced' by the Commission as a basis for the settle- ment and'termi'nation of those proceedings, and' it seems to me that the Commission not only has a moral obiIigation to defend the integrity of its own solemn agreement but also t}iiat the matter shoul'd' now remain for a time in repose, as a matter of equity and fairness to the industry. Let me emphasi'ae that there are no new or different considerations present now that were not present, and considered, during, the extended negoti'afiio s that led to the entry of the 198'1 consent judgments. Forr years the Commission had'-d!iscussed revision and strengthening of the warning,statement in its Annual Reports on,Cigarette Advertising. Its investigation of cigarette ad'verti'sing,had been underway since 1976, andi the resulting Staff Report, which dealt at length wilth the subjectt of rotational warnings, was issuedi in May 198'1, two months before the entry of the consent judgments. During the negotiations, the FTC repTesentatilves speci'fically raisedlfor d'iscussion and decisioniall aspects of the entire subject of the warning,, including its wording, shape andl other details, which are the same considerations underlying the present pending proposal for rotationaT warnings. All the proposals for change in those respects were considered', discussed' and'rejected' in the final, agreed-upon consent judgment. I am presently reviewing, myfilesand' wi11'forward to you shortly aisummary giving thefu~Tle details of'such proposals. Turning to the merits of the pending legislative propposals„ your basic question to me was, "What is wrong withirotational warnings?"' After thinking about that for a while it occurred to me to ask, "What is wrong withithat question?" In prior years, when there was a prevailing,presumption in favor ofgovernmentactilonitocureanyprobl~em,, realor,imag,ined',, t'hequestion would liiave been unsurprisi'ng. However, in today's climate one woul expect instead some searching questions about the needifor,, and wisdom of,, the proposed government action. Such questions would seem to be particularly appropriate in this instance, where there is little reasonn to believe that the existing warning is inad'equate, and'substantiaL reason to believe,, as the Surgeon General"s 1979 Report stated', that "fear-based',, smoking deterrence messages ... enumerating,the future costs of''smoking -- heart disease, lung cancer and' other, serious d~iseases or death -- are often ineffective ... .~' The FTC Staff Report of May 1981 on Cigarette Advrertising, showed that a remarkably high percentage of the public was aware of the heallth haa~a~~rds~ attributed to smoking~~,~ i~nc~l'udiing~~~ the specific haxards~~~ o~f' lung

13ItO%N .N 4~C WO~ '1`'O13A( (:'U Cc)lt 1'U1i_1'1•l C):\ /Fil7rl 111•r.i /1il1 .Sft.rn/ . /. fl:/Yb.%' t1:-,090 •/.r~riir;a iI/'r•: /\~ raP'+rr kl/' J0.241 ERNEST PEPPlES~~ T[L[...o..Ee ^ar..o"'Wccracs1orw+ 15021 774 - 747.6 aNo aE«c^.L couNscc l502,774 •70Is April 15, 1982 Mr. Timothy J. Muris Director, Bureau of Consumer Protection Federal Trade Commission Washington, D. C. 20580 Dear Mr. Muris: Iwanted to put down some thou'ghts I have had fol'lowing our meetr ing last week in response to the quiestions you raised about rotational cigarette warnings. I shoullid' like first to' emphasize, as I mentioned to' you,, that it was less than a year ago that the cigarette manufacturers and the FTC' concluded'the negotiations which resulted in a formaT agreement between them as to the form and content of the cigarette warning statement. That agreement, specifical'lly approved by the Commission itself, was in, the'form of consent judgments between FTCandthe companies entered in the Ti. S., District C.taurtfor the Southern District of New York in July 19811. Those judgments inte'rpreted' and' purportedi1y' clarifiied the original 1972 Consent Ord'ers'and provided that the 197'2 ©rders re'spect- ing the warning statement "'shaS1' remain in ful'11 force and' effect."' They also provided that, among, other things„ the warning statement woul!d'appear for the first time onivending machines and on certain additional point-of-sale and non-point-of-sale promotionaL materials, wou'1d' appear in a single line across the bottom of biillboards in con- sid!erab'ly larger lettering than originally specified, and would be in' the same foreign language as that used iniany' foreign-language adver- tisement. In all other respects, the warning would appear in exactly the samewordingand format as before. An FTC recommendati!on to Congress nowtolabandon that warningand impose onerous new andidifferent warningrequ'irements on cigarette advertising would amount to'a repudiation of its 1981 agreement with the industry almost before the ink had driedi. Whether or not technically the Commission is legally estoppedifrom so changing its position af¢er inducing,the' indu'stry to accept the modified Consent Order by agreement, I certa!inlly bel!ieve' it is morally estopped.