Handsel Art

Date: 23 February 2008

For Immediate Release

Contact: J.R. Few at

(870) 427-1365 or email

handselart@marioncounty.com

Miss, Miss, mistake

As a community based grantee of the Arkansas Department of Health, Tobacco Free Marion County has only had peripheral involvement with youth in the past. Due to programmatic changes at ADH, tobacco prevention curriculum is not funded in Marion County schools. This is complicated by tragic statistics showing Marion County with the highest rate of smoking during pregnancy in the state. Effective prevention is so very important because the tobacco industry depends on youth as “replacement smokers” and has resources to take up any slack in public health advocacy.

The Mountaineer Echo reported that Miss Arkansas visited Flippin High School with a tobacco free message recently. While the effort, I’m sure, was sincere, the materials Miss Arkansas used were funded by RJ Reynolds. These are the people that brought us Joe Camel, fruit and candy flavored cigarettes, and the pink Camel #9s campaign targeting young women. These are the people convicted by a federal court of racketeering and fraud in 2006 and prohibited from marketing to children by the MSA in ‘98.

2007 Centers for Disease Control Best Practices for tobacco prevention state, “Furthermore, youth- and parent-focused anti-tobacco advertising campaigns sponsored by the tobacco industry have been shown to actually increase youth tobacco use. Youth exposed to these ads are more likely to report greater intention to smoke in the future and more positive feelings toward the tobacco industry than those who were not exposed.” 

We should not doubt Miss Arkansas’ best intentions, but casting peer pressure as the fundamental issue regarding smoking provides youth with the misconception that tobacco is something popular and, therefore, tempting. Portraying tobacco use as an adult behavior only serves to make tobacco appealing to young people. Research has shown that youth are 3 times more sensitive to tobacco advertising than adults and more likely to start smoking due to marketing than peer pressure. One third of youth experimentation is attributable to tobacco industry marketing. Right Decisions Right Now is not tobacco prevention, but a sophisticated tobacco marketing campaign.

The world is full of sophisticated marketing but no industry has a history of deceit and predation like tobacco. While we should applaud Ms. Bailey's focus on tobacco there are countless public health groups with more suitable and  proven effective materials available.

The tobacco industry has the resources to fill in the gaps where the public health falters. In 2003 the tobacco lobby passed Arkansas laws eliminating government signage at tobacco retailers. What if we passed laws requiring the quit line displayed at retailers? Federal law preempts advertising restrictions by states but does not dictate what the states can require to challenge a known harm.

There is work to be done.

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