Put Anti-Tobacco Focus On Predatory Industry, Not Kids
Why don’t teens listen to us adults? We’ve known for over 30 years that cigarette smoking is dangerous, in fact deadly, and in the last decade we have acknowledged how powerfully addictive nicotine is.
We’ve been telling our kids for years not to smoke, but recent research indicates an increasing number of them do. The truth is, underage smoking is at a l6-year high, while smoking rates among adults have declined. Why don’t our kids get the message about tobacco use and health?
Well, they do get the message. The problem is that they also get a much flashier and more frequent message that smoking is cool, fun, sophisticated, sexy, macho, sporty and attractive. The tobacco industry spends $6 billion a year to advertise and promote cigarettes in a way that attracts our most vulnerable young people - kids who want more than anything to be mature, independent, beautiful and popular.
Discouraging adolescent tobacco use in the face of ubiquitous encouragement to smoke is a challenge that has perplexed public health experts and policy makers across the country. Some lawmakers have suggested a legislative approach.
Our own Board of Spokane County Commissioners considered a proposal that would have made it illegal for minors to smoke in Spokane County. It has been illegal for anyone younger than 18 to buy tobacco products in the state of Washington since 1895, but we’ve never punished minors caught in the act of smoking cigarettes. The commissioners voted against the idea, and I think they made the right choice.
Practically speaking, making underage smoking a misdemeanor would add a significant burden to an already overtaxed police force and juvenile justice system. If we enacted such a law and then failed to enforce it effectively, it would have the same impact - very little - as our inconsistently enforced law against selling tobacco to minors.
Even more important, punishing children and adolescents for using tobacco would also absolve the tobacco companies of any responsibility for enticing kids to smoke. Their own internal documents, revealed to the public now in the course of a number of lawsuits across the country, indicate the industry recognized more than 20 years ago the need to attract adolescents to smoking.
As one R.J. Reynolds marketing researcher put it in a 1973 memo, teenagers have a “strong drive to try new things,” and “smoking may appear to enhance the fragile self-image of a young person.” A draft of a 1976 R.J. Reynolds planning report clarified the company’s goal: “Evidence is now available to indicate that the 14-to 18-year-old group is an increasing segment of the smoking population. RJR must soon establish a successful new brand in this market.” The tobacco companies have gone after our kids with more wealth and power behind them than any other American industry, and now that they’ve succeeded, we want to punish their victims.
A third consideration is addiction. Many underage smokers are addicted to tobacco, and punishing them for breaking the law isn’t going to help them change their behavior. As with any other addiction, we have to get at the root of the problem rather than trying to tackle the outcome.
In a recent editorial, The Spokesman-Review lamented society’s unwillingness to “take firm action” on underage smoking and demonstrate the “conviction and earnestness” that will make our children take the tobacco and health message seriously. Let’s turn the equation around and take firm action against the industry that actively recruits 3,000 new teen smokers in this country every day.
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The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Yvonne Bucklin Special to Roundtable