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Where There's Smoke, There's Philip Morris

The Oregonian

At an assisted living facility on Southeast Belmont, an elderly woman was curled into a wheelchair on the driveway Thursday, holding on for dear life to the cigarette tucked into one drooping corner of her mouth.

I could only imagine the elation this snapshot of their sordid affair would bring to your average tobacco industry exec. The only topper would be watching her grandson trying to stay calm as he shoplifted his first pack of smokes at the mini-mart down the street.

A Philip Morris marketing report noted 25 years ago, "Today's teenager is tomorrow's potential regular customer," and the company's pursuit of that potential audience has only grown more sophisticated. Witness the Youth Smoking Prevention materials Philip Morris just mailed to high schools and middle schools in Oregon.

The timely arrival of the brochures is as telling as the campaign's title -- "Raising Kids Who Don't Smoke" -- and its tagline: "Talk. They'll listen."

The packet is filled with photographs of happy families and plenty of pop psychology on parenting skills. "Parents are the most important resource in preventing teen substance abuse, including smoking," moms and dads are told. There are tip sheets on finding a good time to talk ("Shooting hoops"), using the conversation to prepare your kid for other growing pains, and how to explain away your smoking habit while forestalling theirs.

The message is as clear as it is insidious: Teenage smoking is the product of unsuccessful parenting, not the industry's successful marketing. The problem is peer pressure; there's nary a word about nicotine.

You remember nicotine, right? The most addictive ingredient in tobacco. The industry's Love Potion No. 9. The level of which, Massachusetts discovered, the industry boosted 10 percent between 1998 and 2004, just to set the hook a little deeper.

Among anti-tobacco groups, there's not much argument about what works to separate kids and cigarettes. "You increase cigarette taxes," said Tabithia Engle, executive director of the Tobacco-Free Coalition of Oregon, "making tobacco harder to get hold of." You create smoke-free workplaces. Highlight the graphic damage tar and carbon monoxide inflict on the human body. Remind teenagers the industry is playing them for the fool.

Philip Morris has a different approach. That's because this PR campaign isn't designed to stop youth smoking, but to put the brakes on tax increases -- which fund successful anti-smoking efforts -- and further restrictions on advertising. And by posing as part of the solution, the industry is free to pass out promotional materials at amusement parks, schools and video arcades.

One hilarious graph in "Raising Kids Who Don't Smoke" suggests more than 70 percent of teenagers offer "My parents don't approve" as a reason for not smoking. I'd love to know how many kids offer the same answer as the source of their addiction.

But the campaign provides the industry with cover, even as the November election and new legislative sessions loom. In California, home to 9 percent of the nation's smokers, Proposition 86 would add $2.60 in taxes to each pack of cigarettes. That initiative, the state estimates, would cut annual sales by 312 million packs and the percentage of high-school-aged smokers from 13.2 percent to 7.6 percent.

Small wonder, then, that Philip Morris has already spent $17 million to defeat that tax increase and is diligently papering schools with these bogus anti-smoking materials. Even as the industry spends $42 million per day on marketing, lobbyists are telling legislators those precious dollars from the multistate tobacco settlement aren't needed to curb smoking. Neither are further restrictions on promotion, advertising or in-store displays.

Philip Morris, you see, has everything under control. Philip Morris is our friend.

Steve Duin: 503-221-8597; 1320 S.W. Broadway, Portland, OR 97201 steveduin@news.oregonian.com www.oregonlive.com/weblogs/papertrail