Tobacco Documents Online

5-18'- 79 ~77 DRAFT Dear Mr. Secretary: My purpose in writing is to try to clarify the facts about youthtob acco smoking and the role of cigarette brand~ advertising, topics which you have discussed publicly on a number of occasionF, including last April 26 in a speech to the National Interagency Council on Smoking and Health. I would'l also like to inform you of a record of restraint by the tobacco industry, self-imposed, which we believe is second to none in support of its pblicy that smoking is an adult custom to be considered only by mature and informed individuals. It is my earnest hope that this may lead you to a reassessment of your position and a possible improvement in our mutual understanding of these significant matters, in the public interest. On 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 `A numerous occasions contained'pejorative characterizations of_ ~ ~ O N W

cigarette brand advertising and dealt with the undesirability of tobacco cigarette smoking by young persons. Unfortunately, your statements have also contained confusing and unreliable statistics about trends in youth smoking, and contradictory claims about youth smoking motivation. As a climax to these many statements, last month you announced in 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. Your statements about smoking among young persons and the role of cigarette advertising are not supported by the facts. You have incorrectly assumed that advertisements for competing brands of cigarettes have an effect on the decision to begin smoking. Sixteen years ago, when relatively few of today's teenagers had been born, and before publication of the 1964 Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General on Smoking and Health, all U. S. cigarette manufacturers voluntary discontinued cigarette brand advertising~ in campus publications along with brandsampling and other brand promotion on campuses. Ttaao years later, in 1965, the same companies adopted an administratively controlled advertising code which embraced O the 1963 actions and, in addition, forbade testimonials by ~ athletes or other celebrities who might have special appeal toCA O IV ~A.

youngsters;/depiction of smokers engaged in sports of other activities requiring stamina or conditioning beyond those rec{uired in normal recreation;/and use of models 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 lawfully permissable methods to decrease their broadcast advertising. These deliberations ended with their joint request to Congress in 1969 to enact legislation1which would make it lawful for them to agree to discontinue all broadcast advertising. Congress responded, effective early in 1971, with a statute prohibiting such advertising. Meanwhile, in 1970, the companies entered into a voluntary agreement with the Federal Trade Commission,pursuant to which they agreed:, to publish, in each advertisement, current yields of "tar" and:nicotine as reported by the Federal Trade Commission for the advertised brand. In 1971, the companies volunteered, when cigarette packages were depicted in advertisements, to display the Congressionally enactedhealth warning notice on them. The following year, each company entered into a consent agreement with the Federal Trade Commission under which the notice was included in each advertisement. a Cd %3 There are other, less-known elements of the cigarette 'A' CA O industry's "adults only" policy. During the later years of N

broadcast advertising, tobacco companies searchedaudience 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 b e an adult. The companies also have ruled out transmission of cigarette samples through the mail, unless they are specifically requested by adults in accord with a company's particular promotional program. Since 1971, cigarette brand advertising has appeared 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. I Last January, the new report of the Surgeon General on smoking and heal th , which you personal ly 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 peers, smoking parents, and older siblings. But with regard to advertising, it declared that "the influence of the mass media in the initiation of smoking is somewhat more difficult to establish." I believe it is reasonable to assume that the Surgeon General was saying that the influence of advertising has not been established. Nonetheless, in your foreword to the same document, you stated that smoking is "a powerful habit often

1 -5- of cigarette brand advertising resources. 1 respectfully suggest that the same is true.regarding your pronouncements about the rates and numbers of teenage tobacco smokers, and taken up by unsuspecting children, lured by seductive multi- million dollar cigarette-advertising campaigns." It would appear, therefore, that you have been ill informed or badly advised regarding the present applications their trends. For example, we learned nearly a year ago that your Department's National Institute on Drug Abuse-had data showingg 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. (Unfortunately, Ms. Kovar reported at the same time that marijuana and~hashish use appeared to be increasing in the same 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 most interesting, in view of the report in 1977 by the director of HEW's Clearinghouse on Smoking and Health, ~ . ~ that "each year from now on we are going to have fewer teenagert than the year before," referring, of course, to a decline in ~ birth rates which began around 1960. A stable smoking rate

1 -6- appliedito a smaller number, obviously, meant a decrease in teen smoking- Thus we were puzzled last January, when, in the fore- word to the new Surgeon General's report, you wrote of an increase in teenage smoking, six months after the contrary data appeared fromiyour Department. This was followed by your statement on February 16, 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 HealthiReports, and were characterizedas showing that "adolescents 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 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 unsupportable rhetorical campaign. On the one hand, you have emphasized, on many occasions, your claim that all cigarette brand advertising is designed 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, ~ W to state unequivocally that "we do not know why approximately ~ C'1 O ~ s

0 i one-third of our young people are smokers by the time they are 18 and the other two-thirds are not." We have no disagreement about the latter statement. What the tobacco industry does know, however, is that cigarette brand advertising is not the reason. 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 children." I hope that the foregoing will indicate the urgent , necessity for your reconsideration of that most unfortunate observation. Sincerely, /s[ Horace R. Kornegay