Tobacco Documents Online

DRAFT Dear Mr. Secretary, My purpose in writing to you is an attempt to clarify the facts about youth tobacco smoking and the role of cigarette brand' advertising, as well as to inform you of a record of industrial restraint, self-imposed, which we believe is second to none in support of its policy that smoking is an adult custom to be considered only by mature and informed individuals. This letter will outline that record. It is my earnest hope that this may lead you to a reassessment of your position on these matters. . October 31, 1977, you stated publicly that "someone is spending billions of dollars each year to keep people from making fully informed choices about smoking and alcohol." On April 26, 1979, you stated that the cigarette industry is spending "staggering amounts...just to persuade people -- including young people -- that smoking is pleasurable and attractive." In the interim 18 months, your speeches, news conferences, Congressional testimony and other public statements have on numerous occasions contained pejorative characterizations of cigarette brand~advertising and dealt with the undesirability p C.~ _ .I ~ C.~ 100 n

~ 2 ,,.~ ~ Y h,.,,c aTs ° of tobacco cigarette smoking by young persons, w;4-h confusing 4 and obviously unreliable statistics about trends in youth, smoking and w4-*}i contradictory claims about youth smoking l motivation. As a climax to these many statements, last month you announced'iln a speech your intent to ask the cigarette industry to devote ten percent of its brand advertising expenditures for a campaign to discourage young persons from smoking cigarettes. ~ cigarette bran&advertising in campus publications aliong with brand sampling and other brand promotion on campuses. Two years later, in,1965, the same companies adopted an administratively controlled advertising code which embraced the 1963 actions and', in addition, forbade use of advertising Health, all U. S. cigarette manufacturers voluntarily discontinued Your statements about smoking among young persons an& the role of cigarette advertising are simply not supported by the facts. You have also~incorrectly assumed that advertisementss for competing brands of cigarettes have an effect on the decision to begimsmoking. Sixteen years agoy when relatively few of today"s teenagers had been born, and'before publication of the 1964 Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon Generall on Smoking and' testimonials by athletes or other celebrities who might have special appeal to youngsters. The companies also agreed to . 1~ avoid advertisiing which represented'ici,garette smoking as essential

-3- C o social prominence, success or sexual attraction; to avoi& ctivities requiring stamina or conditioning beyond those depicting smokers iniadvertilsing engaged in sports or other who were or appeared to be under 25. In 1967, in view of increasing cigarette brand competition in broadcast media and of the growing and captive youth audience for those media, the cigarette companies began studying 7e yfi"cs,by'r such advertis ing . I ~N4_ X-k.-dA N t L methods to decrease their.broad!cast advertising. These deliberations ended with their joint request to Congress in 1969 to enact legislation which would make it lawful for them to agree to discontinue all broadcast advertising. Congress responded, effective early in,1~971, with a statute prohibiting e+-a i r- I Q_ 1 Meanwhile, in 19701, the companies agree to pu lish, in .,rs.a-V- each advertisement, current yields of "tar" and nicotine as reported by the Federal Trade Commission for the advertised bran In 1971, the companies volunteered, when cigarettee packages were depicte&in advertisements, to display the Congressionally enacted health warning notice on them. The following year, each company entered into a consent agreement with the Federal Trade Commission under which the notice was include&in each adVertisement. There are other, less-known elements of the cigarette industry's "adults only" policy. During the later years of broadcast advertising, tobacco companies searched audience 7S v,[.r4 ~ ~ ~ ~.7QD ~ ~

-4- C ratings for schedules and times likely to capture audiences with the smallest number of young persons. Persons who distribute promotional cigarette samples have been meticulously instructed to avoid distribution to any individual who does not appear to be an adult. The companies have ruled out direct mail distribution of samples to adults, on the groundithat they might be intercepted by youngsters. Since 1971, cigarette brand'advertising has appeared sR4-y iznrjn principally in newspapers and magazines where youth readership is minimal. The absence of such advertising in electronic media has eliminated the great preponderance of youth exposure to it. Last January, the new report of the Surgeon General on smoking and1health, which you personally publicized, dealt with teenage smoking motivation. It stated that "by the time children reach junior high school, almost all of them believe smoking is dangerous." As to their smoking motivation, the report suggested the influence of smoking parents, older siblings and peers. But with regard to advertilsing, it declared that "the influence of the mass media in the initiation of smoking is somewhat more difficult to establish." I bellieve it is reasonable to assume that the Surgeon General was saying that the influence of advertising has not been established. Nonetheliess, in your forewor&to the same document, you stated that smoking is "a powerful habit often taken up by unsuspecting children, lured by seductive multi- million dollar cigarette-advertising campaigns."

C 5 It would appear, therefore, that as the author of a proposal for a major shift in the application of cigarette.. ~ r enfortunately, Ms. Kovar reported at the same time that marijuana and hashish use appeared to be increasing in the same 4 about the rates and numbers of teenage tobacco smokers, and their trends. For example, we were encouraged to learn nearly a year ago that your Department"s National Institute on Drug Abuse had data showing that increases in drinking and tobacco cigarette smoking among adolescents had ceased as long ago as 1974, well before you took office. These data were reported by Mary Grace Kovar, of HEW's National Center for Health Statistics, in a paper read to the Institute of Medicine at the National Academy of Sciences here in Washington, and discussed by her at a news conference, on June 26, 1978.~ due respect, IL&ax-the same is true regarding your pronouncements brand advertising resources you have been ill informed or badly advised regarding their present applications. With all report in 1977 by the director of HEW's Clearinghouse on Smoking age group. The NIDA data, for instance, showed~ 29 percent of 16-17-year-olds using marijuana or hashish in 1977, and 35 percent smoking tobacco ) This report that the rise in the rate of teen smoking had ceased was especially gratifying to us, in view of the and Health,.that "each year from~now on we are going to have fewer teenagers than the year before," referring, of course,

the decline in birth rates which~began around 19601. A stable smoking rate applied to a smaller number, obviously, meant a decrease in teen smoking~. Thus we were puzzled last January, when, in the foreword to the new Surgeon General's report, you wrote of an increase in teenage smoking, six months after the reassuring and contrary data appeared'from your Department. This was followed by your statement on February 15, 1979, that "The rate of teenage smoking is apparently on the rise." In March, as you must be aware, the NIDA data were published in your Department's magazine, Public H'ealth Reports, and~ were characterized as showing that "ad'iolescents of any age were less likely to be smokers in 1977 than in 1974." It was not until April 26 that you mentioned what you called "good news" about the decline in teenage smoking. Yet, having done so, you continued your bitter and inexplicable attack on cigarette brand advertising. It seems, Mr. Secretary, that you wish to curtail the advertisement of legal products -- tobacco cigarette brands -- through a misguided and unsupportabie rhetorical campaign. 0 the one hand~, you have emphasized, on many occasions, your claim that all cigarette brand advertising is d~esigned to persuade and~ succeeds in persuading children to smoke tobacco. On the other hand, when you feel that it is important to seek public funds for research, you are able, as you did last January 11, 4 to state unequivocally that "we do not know why approximately ~ C1T one-third~of our young people are smokers by the time they are ~

7 18 and the other two-thirds are not." c • We have no disagreement about the latter statement. What the tobacco industry does know, however, is that cigarette brand advertising is not the answer. Close to one-third of America's teenagers are users of marijuana and hashish by the time they are 18. Nobody advertises marijuana or hashish. You stated on April 26 that the failure of the cigarette .manufacturers to accept your suggestions would permit the conclusion that their managements "care more about the health of their corporate treasuries than the health of this nation's child'ren." I hope the foregoing will indicate the urgent necessity for your reconsideration of that most unfortunate observation. Sincerely, /s/ Horace R. Kornegay

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