INFACT applauds President Clinton's determination that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should regulate tobacco products to protect children and youth from nicotine addiction. This decision is a step toward INFACT's Tobacco Industry Campaign goal of stopping the tobacco industry from addicting new customers around the world, especially children and young people. The measures announced today closely parallel the examples in our Public Challenge to this industry to stop tobacco marketing and promotion that appeals to children and young people, which we issued last April in the wake of Congressional hearings:
Health advocates and activists who have fought long and hard to stop the tobacco epidemic are right to celebrate what we have accomplished so far, but we must not delude ourselves into thinking the battle is won. Philip Morris, RJR Nabisco, and the rest of the tobacco industry depend on the youth market for new young customers, and will fight tooth and nail to continue promoting their product with clever marketing tactics and lethally effective images like Joe Camel and the Marlboro Man. Big Tobacco has vast financial resources, and is a master at using them to mount deceptive public relations campaigns and manipulate public policy in the interest of tobacco profits.
The tobacco industry has already filed suit to prevent the FDA from regulating tobacco. In coming weeks, these companies will use their considerable political clout behind the scenes in a desperate attempt to ward off this long-awaited public health protection. They will lobby key members of Congress, and fill their coffers with hefty campaign contributions. They may threaten to do away with the FDA altogether. As we face the sweeping deregulatory agenda of the 104th Congress, tobacco corporations provide one of the clearest examples of what happens to our democracy when public health and well-being are forced to take a back seat to aggressive corporate influence-peddling. The human toll of tobacco products is enormous, urgent, vivid, and touches many of us each year.
In "sincere" appeals to the US public's sense of fairness and compromise, Philip Morris and RJR Nabisco will promise to regulate themselves. But 30 years of painful history and tens of millions of deaths show that self-regulation by tobacco companies has been disastrous. Under the tobacco industry's toothless marketing code, expenditures for tobacco advertising and promotion skyrocketed by more than 50% from 1990 to 1993 (the latest year for which data re available). Meanwhile, youth smoking in the US is on the rise: 3,000 teens take up smoking every day, and smoking rates among 8th graders increased by 30% from 1991 to 1994.
The tobacco industry claims that it does not want young people to smoke. Philip Morris and RJR Nabisco insist that they do not target young people with their advertising and promotions. The executives from every major US tobacco company swore under oath before a Congressional subcommittee last year that nictoine is not addictive. The leaders of this industry do not tell the truth and cannot be trusted. The US public and the officials we elect to set public policy cannot and must not compromise with a murderous industry. It would be wise to be suspicious of any changes the tobacco companies agree to make voluntarily. The more the industry resists and protests, the more we'll know we're on the right track.
We have come a long way, but we have a long and hard fight ahead. We cannot match this industry's $16 million in political contributions over the past decade. We cannot match their $6 billion a year in tobacco advertising and promotions targeting our kids. Fortunately, we have millions of concerned individuals on our side. The people of the US have a chance to set a positive example of sound public health policy worldwide, while living up to the ideals of our democratic system. There has never been a more critical moment to mobilize for corporate accountability, for smart regulation, for the health of our children and grandchildren.