Public Health Leaders Denounce New Cigarette Ads Aimed @ Latino Youth.

Leaders in the public health community are denouncing new advertising and marketing tactics by the tobacco industry that are aimed at the Latino community, especially Latino youth. Public health groups, including the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and the National Latino Council on Alcohol and Tobacco Prevention, are demanding that the tobacco companies stop targeting the Latino community.

In recent months, the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company has launched an elaborate, expensive new marketing campaign for Kool cigarettes that has included ads in publications popular with Latino youth, including Latina and Cosmopolitan en Español. The ad campaign, which includes an eight-page insert in some magazines, features multicultural images and slogans intended to appeal to the aspirations of ethnic minorities, including “It’s about old world class and new world style” and “It’s about pursuing your ambitions and staying connected to your roots”.

In addition to magazine ads, the new Kool campaign has scheduled concerts in 14 cities around the country featuring popular musical artists well known in the Latino community. Aggressive tobacco industry marketing has targeted convenience stores in Miami and other cities with large Spanish-speaking populations with saturation advertising in both English and Spanish.

The new Kool advertising campaign is not the first time the tobacco companies have targeted the Latino community. In 1999-2000, Philip Morris ran a magazine ad campaign for Virginia Slims cigarettes that used the slogan “Find Your Voice” and featured Latinas and other ethnic women. The campaign suggested that independence and allure could be found by smoking. Philip Morris dropped the “Find Your Voice” slogan after it was criticized for targeting ethnic women and girls and for being offensive to smokers with throat cancer.

As smoking rates decline in the United States, public health leaders point out that the tobacco companies are targeting new markets to maintain their profits, and the Latino market is an inviting target because Latinos currently smoke at lower rates than the population as a whole. Currently, 16.4 percent of Hispanic adults in the U.S. smoke, compared to 20.9 percent of the entire population. In 2004, 20.5 percent of Hispanic high school students nationwide smoked, compared to the overall high school smoking rate of 21.7 percent. Health experts said the tobacco marketing is having an impact, as smoking rates among Hispanic high school students increased from 19.8 percent in 2002 to 20.5 percent in 2004, while overall smoking rates declined.

“The tobacco companies are aggressively going after the Latino market, especially Latino youth, so the public health community is speaking out now to stop them,” said Patricia Sosa, Vice President for Constituency Relations at the Campaign or Tobacco-Free Kids. “It is outrageous that the tobacco companies are exploiting the aspirations, culture and images of the Latino community to market deadly and addictive tobacco products to our children.”

Despite promising in the 1998 state tobacco settlement to stop marketing to kids, the tobacco companies have actually increased their cigarette marketing by 125 percent since 1998 to a record $15.1 billion a year nationwide, according to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. That means the tobacco companies spend $41.5 million a day to market cigarettes in the United States. In contrast, the states are spending less than 3 percent of the annual payments from the 1998 settlement on tobacco prevention. Only a handful of states are spending the minimum amounts suggested by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to adequately fund and maintain a comprehensive tobacco prevention program. These programs include anti-tobacco advertising, school and community education programs, and enforcement of laws against tobacco sales to minors.

“Tobacco companies know that Latinos are the youngest and fastest growing market. That is why they are spending more than ever before to go after our children,” said Guillermo Brito, Executive Director of the National Latino Council on Alcohol and Tobacco Prevention. “For this reason, it is important that we fight back and insist on strong programs that address tobacco prevention issues. It is also imperative that policies change in order to protect the future of our children.”

Tobacco use is the number one preventable cause of death in the United States, killing more than 400,000 people and costing the nation more than $180 billion a year in health care costs and lost productivity. Tobacco kills more people each year than alcohol, AIDS, car crashes, illegal drugs, murders, and suicides combined. In Florida, tobacco claims about 28,600 lives each year. Nearly 90 percent of all smokers start as teens or younger. Every day in the U.S., about 4,000 kids try their first cigarette and another 1,500 kids become regular smokers.

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http://tobaccofreekids.org/reports/ethnic/