Sports Illustrated Asked To Kick Tobacco Ad Habit

Five members of Congress asked Sports Illustrated on Monday to stop printing tobacco advertising, saying tobacco companies are “using your magazine to hook children” on their products.

Food and Drug Administration regulations proposed last week would prohibit tobacco advertising in magazines with a significant teen-age readership. But because the rules have already been challenged in court, the lawmakers asked Sports Illustrated to follow them now on a voluntary basis.

Millions of teen-agers who read Sports Illustrated to follow “the lives and achievements of their sports heroes … are literally bombarded by advertising promoting the virtues of smoking,” wrote Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J., and Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., James Hansen, R-Utah, Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and Martin Meehan, D-Mass.

They cited five full-page cigarette ads in the July 31 issue, including one urging readers to “collect all 10” Camel cigarette collectors’ packs.

Such ads tell teens smoking is desirable, said the letter to Norman Pearlstine, editor-in-chief of Time Inc., which publishes Sports Illustrated. It urged him to put “the health of our children ahead of … corporate profits.”

Time spokesman Peter Costiglio said Pearlstine was traveling and would respond to the congressmen once he returned.

The FDA says it will regulate cigarettes and smokeless tobacco as devices to deliver addictive nicotine. Among its proposed regulations is banning tobacco ads in magazines where teens make up at least 15 percent of the readership.