Smoked out: teen cigarette use is dropping. Why? Credit a combination of advertising restrictions, higher prices, and the "Truth." (National).

National

Rodriguez Barnett could easily have been a teen smoker. The 17-year-old high school senior from St. Paul, Minn., comes from a tobacco-using family: His father, brother, and sister are all smokers, and his mother quit only after recent heart problems. When he was younger, big tobacco companies were using kid-friendly mascots such as Joe Camel, a pack of cigarettes was relatively cheap, and youth smoking was on the rise.

But Barnett hates Big Tobacco. Of course, he knows about the obvious health risks--at this point, who doesn't? What sent him over the edge, motivating him to do spoken-word performances for Target Market, a Minnesota anti-tobacco youth campaign, was the deceit.

"My take is I'm being targeted by the tobacco companies," Barnett says, "and I don't like people manipulating my mind."

Barnett has become a warrior in a modern-day battle of David and Goliath. On the Goliath side are U.S. tobacco companies, which spend $8 billion a year to make smoking appear sexy, sophisticated, and mature. On the David side are anti-tobacco groups, many of them involving teens, that can only spend a fraction of that amount, but have effectively used a series of edgy ads--at a time of higher prices for cigarettes and greater restrictions on where smoking is allowed--to help drive a steep drop in teen smoking.

After climbing in the early 1990s, teen smoking rates have fallen by nearly half for 8th-graders, a third for 10th-graders, and more than 20 percent for 12th-graders (see "Student Smoking Drops," page 12).

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But in a sign that Goliath is far from dead, teen smoking rates remain high. Thirty percent of high school seniors are occasional smokers, and 19 percent smoke daily. (About 25 percent of the adult population smokes regularly.)

Tobacco companies insist they don't target teens in their marketing campaigns. But critics say the tobacco industry depends on hooking the ranks of the young, because once they start smoking, the odds are high that they will continue lighting up for years, possibly for life.

"Tobacco companies know teens are where the money is," says Jeff Arnett, an independent scholar at the University of Maryland who has testified in numerous anti-tobacco lawsuits. "They know that if they get them at 14, they'll have them at 24 and 44." The Surgeon General reports that among current smokers, 80 percent started before they were 18.

Recently, the percentage of teens who say smoking is a health hazard has leveled off, in what could be "an early warning sign" that the slowdown in teen smoking is over, according to a University of Michigan study.

PAYING FOR THEIR OWN DECLINE

The anti-tobacco campaign has its roots in the 1998 settlement of a huge lawsuit brought by 46 states. The four largest tobacco companies agreed to pay the states $206 billion over 25 years. The agreement settled charges alleging that the companies had repeatedly lied about the safety of their products, creating billions of dollars in health care expenses nationwide.

The settlement had one immediate effect: The companies passed along the cost to customers, bringing a steep rise in the price of cigarettes. With the average pack today costing more than $3 (see "Higher Costs,"), the sticker shock may account for a portion of the decline in teen smoking. A National Cancer Institute study released this spring found that even a 10 percent increase in cigarette price could reduce youth smoking by 5 percent, a much higher rate than for adults.

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The tobacco companies also gave rise to a multimedia anti-tobacco campaign calling itself "Truth." Thanks to the settlement, the campaign comes literally at the expense of the companies. Tobacco companies, already prohibited by federal law from advertising on TV, agreed to stop all print advertising aimed at teens and to fund the American Legacy Foundation, which created the Truth campaign. The foundation now has an annual advertising budget of more than $100 million.

The result is a series of ads that are a far cry from your parents' anti-smoking ads. The new ads don't nag about the health dangers of smoking, a tactic teens say doesn't work. "The `horrific death' thing has been played out," says Diane Tran, 18, a senior from Lakeville, Minn., and a member of Target Market, itself funded by the tobacco settlement. "It's `Don't do that,' and nobody listens."

A MESSAGE THAT WORKS

But teens are listening to the Truth ads, in part because they helped create them. The American Legacy Foundation has met with 100 teens repeatedly to help hone its campaign. Programs like Minnesota's Target Market and others in Florida, New Jersey, and Maine have also enlisted young people. The goal is to channel feelings of anger like Rodriquez Barnett's about dishonesty and manipulation.

The ads employ wicked sarcasm. They've used body bags, rat costumes, hidden cameras, and urinals to fashion some of the barbs. In one Truth radio ad, a teenager who claims to be a dog walker calls the offices of Lorillard Tobacco. Employees ask him his business, and he responds by offering to provide the cigarette maker with "quality dog urine." The reason: It contains urea, which, he says, is a chemical that is also put into cigarettes.

Lorillard says urea is a natural ingredient in tobacco, not an additive. It sued the American Legacy Foundation, saying that the ad violated the settlement agreement's restrictions against direct attacks on the tobacco companies.

The tobacco companies have been grumbling since the foundation first broadcast a TV commercial portraying piles of body bags in front of Philip Morris's headquarters in 2000. They say they aren't targeting teens anymore, so why are teens targeting them? "We are making a responsible effort to target only adult audiences," says Steve Watson, a spokesman for Lorillard, reflecting the views of many in the industry.

A GOLIATH WITH MORE WEAPONS

But anti-tobacco forces say teens are still bombarded with tobacco ads in high-teen-readership magazines like Rolling Stone, People, Sports Illustrated, and others. A recent study by the California Attorney General found that 12- to 17-year-olds see 50 cigarette ads per year in magazines alone. That doesn't include the cigarette promotions teens see in convenience stores, gas stations, and similar locations.

An especially powerful promotional tool has not been banned: smoking in movies. Critics say it's basically a commercial when a star lights up in a hit film. "As good as the anti-tobacco campaigns are, they cannot compete with one actor on the screen," says Susan Moses, director of the Harvard Tobacco Project.

Recently, tobacco opponents have met with movie executives in an effort to limit the on-screen smoking. Some advocates even want to shield teens by requiring an R-rating for movies in which actors smoke. Film studios so far have shown some willingness to consider voluntarily limiting cigarette smoking in films, but the R-rating looks like a long shot.

Still, the anti-tobacco forces are prepared to continue the big fight, believing they have what it takes to topple Goliath. "We've packaged Truth as a brand," says Lyndon Haviland, the chief operating officer of the American Legacy Foundation. "If you arm teens with the power, the facts, teens get it."

lesson plan 1 * NATIONAL

Smoked Out

FOCUS: Edgy Ads Focus on Tobacco Companies' Dishonesty and Manipulation

TEACHING OBJECTIVES

To help students understand why American teenagers have edged away from smoking.

Discussion Questions:

* Do you smoke? If so, what helped you make that choice? If not, what helped you make that choice?

* Have you noticed a drop in teenage smoking in the last couple of years?

* Why do you believe tobacco ads are banned from TV but not from magazines and newspapers?

* Do you believe teenagers are more susceptible to cigarette advertising than adults are?

CLASSROOM STRATEGIES

Ad Analysis: Do students agree that tobacco companies promote their products as sexy, sophisticated, and mature? Have students examine the anti-smoking ads illustrating the article. Have them grade the ads--A through F--for their effectiveness, and explain why they graded as they did. What values do the ads appeal to? Does the death message sink in? Does the fact that smoking's ill effects may not appear for years allow young people to dismiss health concerns as something that affects "old people"?

Research: You might ask students to bring two or three cigarette ads to class. Have them examine the photos or illustrations. What unwritten messages do the images portray? Finally, ask students where they found the cigarette ads. Were any of them in magazines that are popular with teen readers?

Free-Speech Issue: Tell students there is another side to the argument over advertising: free speech. Note that federal law bans tobacco ads on TV, and other restrictions limit ads that might appeal to teens.

Ask students whether commercial speech (ads) for a legal product should enjoy the same First Amendment protection as an individual's right to free speech. Why, if the evidence identifies smoking's ill effect on health, do tobacco ads remain legal? Would new restrictions on tobacco ads infringe on tobacco companies' rights?

Web Watch: Internal memos of U.S., British, and Canadian tobacco companies discuss efforts to persuade teens and even children to smoke: www.ash.org.uk/html/conduct/html/ tobexpld3.html.

QUIZ 1

Use with NATIONAL, pages 10-13 MULTIPLE CHOICE

1. Rodriquez Barnett has good reason to believe that smoking was related to his mother's recent bout with (a) multiple sclerosis (b) heart problems (c) Parkinson's disease (d) epilepsy.

2. The article reports that tobacco companies spend $8 billion a year on (a) research (b) employees' wages and benefits (c) licenses to sell cigarettes in foreign countries (d) promoting their products as sexy, sophisticated, and mature.

3. About what percent of high school seniors smoke on a daily basis? (a) 20% (b) 30% (c) 40% (d) 50%.

4. Which finding about smoking was revealed in a U.S. Surgeon General's report? (a) Cigarettes are highly overpriced. (b) About 50 percent of smokers are African-American. (c) About 80 percent of smokers started before they were 18. (d) Smokers are addicted to nicotine.

5. What was one result of the tobacco settlement of 1998? (a) Tobacco companies agreed to pay states more than $200 billion over 25 years, much of it to help cover costs of treating smoking-related diseases. (b) Tobacco companies were barred from advertising on TV. (c) Tobacco companies agreed to raise the cost of cigarettes to discourage teens from buying them. (d) Tobacco companies agreed to reduce the amount of tobacco in cigarettes.

6. What is the American Legacy Foundation? (a) an organization that memorializes people who have died of smoking-related diseases (b) an association of non-smoking medical doctors (c) an organization that works to reduce smoking (d) a group that lobbies for smokers' rights.

7. Since 1980, the number of packs of cigarettes consumed in the U.S. has (a) remained about the same. (b) edged up, but only slightly. (c) dropped by about half. (d) dropped by about a third.

8. What is the focus of new anti-smoking ads? (a) the high cost of cigarettes (b) smokers are a minority (c) alleged dishonesty and manipulative behavior of tobacco companies (d) new findings linking smoking to cancer.

9. Anti-smoking groups say tobacco companies still target teens with ads (a) in magazines (b) on radio (c) on T-shirts (d) at concerts.

10. A new target of anti-smoking groups is (a) school dances (b) concerts (c) professional sports (d) movies.

ANSWERS

Upfront Quiz 1, TE 6 1. (b) heart problems. 2. (d) promoting their products. 3. (a) 20 percent. 4. (c) 80 percent of smokers started before they were 18. 5. (a) Tobacco companies agreed to pay states more than $200 billion over 25 years, much of it to help cover the costs of treating smoking-related diseases. 6. (c) an organization that works to reduce smoking. 7. (d) dropped by about a third. 8. (c) alleged dishonesty and manipulative behavior of tobacco companies. 9. (a) in magazines. 10. (d) movies.