Platform : ‘It’s a Losing Argument to Defend Smoking’

Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders’ report on smoking said the tobacco industry is targeting kids with its $4-billion-a-year ad campaigns. And the Food and Drug Administration proposes to regulate or ban cigarettes because they contain nicotine--an addictive drug. Some Southern California responses follow.

VICKI WALKER

Drug, alcohol, tobacco education coordinator, Orange County Department of Education

I agree with Surgeon General Elders. As long as we allow the kind of advertisement we allow with tobacco, we set up a normative value for our children. Every time we see a billboard it says this is an accepted norm. We’ve become passive about the kind of addictive, diseasing, dangerous drug that it is. You have cartoon characters and merchandise geared to young kids. One of our curriculum activities in teaching kids about tobacco is to look at advertising and what the message really says to someone their age.

As for FDA regulation of cigarettes, I am very interested in that. In Canada they’ve explored having the cigarette companies put ingredient labels on their cigarettes. The tobacco industry doesn’t release what its additives are. There are probably things we would never put in our mouths. As long as they’re not listed on the package those who are smoking don’t know what they’re inhaling.

KRISTY PREECE

Junior at Thousand Oaks High, 16

I didn’t start smoking because of cigarette ads. I started when friends asked me if I wanted to try it and I said: “Yes.” It might help to ban the ads for younger kids but for people who already smoke, it’s not going to matter.

ROBERT FIELDSTEEL

Actor who recently gave up cigarettes, Los Angeles

As long as they’re allowing cigarettes on the market, then they have a right to be able to advertise. If there are specific instances of advertisements people feel are irresponsible--Camel ads bringing in more young people for example--that’s another story. But I’d also say if you start on a case-by-case basis, then you’ve really got to have your research down. Otherwise what starts is like this whole syndrome now of ‘violence on television causing violence.’ Well, prove it. Believe me, I’m not in favor of promoting cigarettes, but either phase out the business or not.

BART KOSKO

Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, USC

The issue is not promoting health but using force. The Food and Drug Administration uses force for what it sees as your own good. It seeks to protect you from yourself. Smoking hurts you. So does eating too much fat or listening to too much loud music or sleeping too little. How much it hurts is a fuzzy matter of degree. The FDA wants to draw a hard line through the fuzz and back it up with the force of law. It wants to go beyond setting standards to enforcing them.

A long time ago, people like Thomas Jefferson and the man in the street thought the state should use force in just the same way that they used it: in self-defense. You were free to go to hell in your own fashion so long as you let everyone else go there in theirs. All that has changed now.

DORIAN CALKINS

Employee of the Smokers Castle, Ventura, 24

Smoking is not the hottest habit to have but you should have the right to smoke if you want. It’s a losing argument to defend smoking. I think it’s a good idea to ban cigarette advertising although the ads didn’t affect me. I began smoking six years ago because of the group of people I was around. I had been told in the past that tobacco and nicotine are natural drugs that were legal. I’ll bet 90% of smokers already think of nicotine as a drug.

DREW PINSKY

Internist and addiction specialist, Pasadena

There is absolutely no doubt that nicotine is the No. 1 gateway drug for young people who eventually get on to more significant illicit substances, and to alcohol, for that matter. I’m not certain that preventing advertising would necessarily prevent use. We’re starting to control more on one end at the same time we’re talking about legalizing on the other end. I know there’s a discussion in Sacramento about legalizing illicit drugs to get the crime syndicate out of distribution and profiteering.

ANGIE MEI

Senior at Mission Viejo High School, 17

I wouldn’t smoke, regardless of any ads, because I don’t think it’s cool. When I look at an ad, it’s almost too fake. You see someone happy and pretty, and you know that they’re trying to create an image that’s not true. But I’m afraid that they do influence people. I think it’s a good idea to ban the ads.