Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, December 3, 1993 TAG: 9312030071
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"The adults have dropped it like a stone," said John Pierce of the University of California, San Diego.
Among teen-agers, however, smoking suddenly began to rise in 1988 after declining by about 1 percentage point per year through the 1980s, Pierce reported in San Francisco at the first scientific conference of the California Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program.
He said the turnaround was the result of RJR Nabisco's introduction of its widely criticized Joe Camel advertising campaign.
"That's an enormous effect," said Pierce. "Not only did they stop the drop, they turned it around to increase at almost the same rate."
Pierce said he cannot prove that the advertising campaign was responsible, but is completing a study that he believes will show that the campaign triggered the surge.
Donald Shopland, coordinator of the smoking control program at the National Cancer Institute, agreed.
"Certainly, you can track things and see that there are changes with these advertising promotions. You have to think they have an effect," he said.
The company has vigorously denied the charge, saying that the campaign is intended only to encourage smokers to switch brands.
"We have never seen any evidence that the Joe Camel character has caused kids to want to start smoking. It has all been conjecture," said Peggy Carter, a spokeswoman for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco. She said Marlboro remains the brand of choice among underage smokers.
Shopland said the continuing high prevalence of smoking in teen-agers is limited almost exclusively to white teen-agers. Smoking is declining significantly among black teen-agers, he said.
Researchers disagree over the reason for that difference, but Shopland said he thinks it's a consequence of cigarette price increases during the 1980s.
Pierce's findings are based on national surveys of 100,000 people and on California surveys of 8,000.
The most recent data shows that about 6 percent of teen-agers ages 16-18 in California were smokers in 1988. By 1990, that had climbed to almost 8 percent, Pierce said.
The Joe Camel campaign, built around a suave cartoon character, has come under fire from the U.S. Surgeon General and the AMA.
by CNB