Smoked Out

In a letter to Florida's Department of Health last month, Philip Morris slammed Crispin Porter + Bog usky's latest "Truth" anti-smoking ads as "inaccurate, misleading and false" and demanded that the client "correct the advertisements" and "publish a retraction." In short, Philip Morris wants to throttle "Truth." The real problem Philip Morris seems to have with "Truth" is that it is popular and effective. The most recent Flor ida Youth Tobacco Survey indicates that smoking among middle- and high school students in Flo r ida is down 38 percent since 1998. CP+B's new ads excoriate Big Tobacco for embracing anti-smoking initiatives aimed at young Americans while aggressively marketing to their peers in Africa, Asia and South America (a charge Philip Morris denies). One spot shows a classroom of would-be Marlboro men reciting their lines in different languages. It's not a new accusation. In 1978, I wrote a story for Newsweek documenting U.S. tobacco's invasion of the Third World, with its caravans of musicians and students distributing Winstons, Marlboros and Larks to eager kids. I remember the outrage that story set off in Philip Morris' Park Avenue suite. Today, teenage Marlboro girls distribute smokes all over the globe. A World Health Organization report released in 2001 reported that in the 68 countries studied, up to one-quarter of schoolchildren age 11-15 had been handed free cigarettes by marketers. Clearly, Philip Morris has little direct control over the activities of its overseas affiliates. But neither is it likely to be upset by them. Since 1990, Philip Morris' domestic sales have grown by less than 5 percent; overseas sales have jumped 80 percent. I must confess a personal involvement with these issues. In 1989, my father, a dockworker, died after a long and terrible battle with emphysema. My mother, who never smoked, died two years later of throat cancer, which doctors attributed to 40 years of inhaling secondary smoke. The attack on CP+B—cc'd to 28 Florida TV stations—comes at a bad time for anti-smoking efforts in cash-strapped states. Arnold's decade-long "Make smoking history" campaign had its funding gutted by the state of Mass achusetts and is now itself history. Arizona has cut anti-smoking monies from $10-15 million annually to $3-5 million. Even Flor ida's "Truth" spending is down to $5-6 million a year, from $20-25 million in 1998. All of which may trigger a resurgence of smoking among teens and, ultimately, more needless death. Meanwhile, The Freedom to Advertise Coalition, a lobbying group that includes the Association of National Advertisers, the American Advertising Federation and the American Association of Advertising Agencies, is gearing up to attack what it calls a "draconian" Justice Department plan to expand marketing restrictions on tobacco. Talk about overkill. What the tobacco settlement did, however briefly, was put both sides on a level playing field. Sure, the "Truth" ads—with their body bags, evil tobacco moguls and plotlines right out of The Insider—are exaggerated. But they're no more an exaggeration than the Marlboro Man. In journalism, we call that balance.

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Smoked Out

Vincent Coppola

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Vincent Coppola