Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, October 5, 1995 TAG: 9510050060
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
``The R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company has the gall to blame the problem of youth smoking on everyone but itself,'' the Coalition on Smoking or Health said in a letter to newspaper editors released Wednesday.
The accusation came as The Washington Post reported that a company official recommended in a 1973 memo that RJR create cigarette brands targeted at the youth market.
The coalition is objecting to recent ads that ask: ``Who should be responsible for your children, a bureaucrat or you?''
The ads say that the company supports and funds programs in which parents and teachers educate children in ``how to resist peer pressure and make more fully informed decisions.''.
``We all agree we must do something to keep cigarettes out of the hands of children under the age of 18,'' the ads say. ``But the answer isn't more bureaucracy.''
RJR spokeswoman Maura Ellis said Wednesday that the surgeon general and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have agreed that peer pressure is the main reason youngsters start to smoke.
``Clearly, this is very threatening to the anti-smoking industry and they're making kind of sloppy accusations back out of frustration,'' she said.
Scott D. Ballin, spokesman for the American Heart Association, a coalition member, said RJR has been marketing to teens for 30 years.
``They've been robbing the cradle of America's kids for too long,'' he said. ``How can anyone believe they don't market to kids when their own documents prove it?''
The RJR memo obtained by the Post suggested that a new cigarette brand could be marketed as a way to cope with the pressures of being a teen-ager.
``Realistically, if our company is to survive and prosper, over the long term, we must get our share of the youth market. In my opinion, this will require new brands tailored to the youth market,'' Claude E. Teague Jr., then the company's assistant director of research and development, wrote.
Teague said he believed tobacco companies were ``unfairly constrained from directly promoting cigarettes to the youth market.''
Teague's memo cautioned officials against influencing nonsmokers to take up the habit but stated that ``we should simply recognize that many or most of the `21 and under' group will inevitably become smokers, and offer them an opportunity to use our brands.''
RJR spokesman David B. Fishel played down the memo's significance, calling it called the memo a ``draft document that reflects preliminary thought of one individual in research and development.''
by CNB