New Camel Cigarette Draws Protest

In the latest skirmish between anti-smoking activists and the tobacco industry, African Americans led a small protest Saturday against the new Camel menthol cigarette being advertised with the catchy Joe Camel character.

Activists see the decision by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. to market a Camel menthol as an attempt to entice African American youths into smoking because African Americans are particularly drawn to menthol cigarettes sold by other brands.

“We’ve been exploited by the tobacco industry long enough,” said Brenda Bell Caffee, network coordinator of the Sacramento-based African American Tobacco Education Network. “We used to pick it, now they want us to smoke it.”

A spokeswoman for Reynolds, reached at the company’s headquarters in Winston-Salem, N.C., said that “there is absolutely no truth to the contention that the brand is being targeted to African Americans or any other specific ethnic group.”

The new cigarette is Camel’s attempt to break into the growing market for menthol cigarettes. The menthol market is growing at 3% to 4% a year while overall sales of cigarettes have been flat, according to the American Lung Assn.

Reynolds spokeswoman Maura Ellis said that of 51 national publications where Camel menthols are being advertised, only five have as their primary readership African Americans. She also said Reynolds has not altered Joe Camel to appeal to African Americans.

Still, Caffee and others believe that Joe Camel looks different when billboards are placed in minority neighborhoods such as southeast San Diego.

“Joe Camel always looks darker when he comes to our neighborhood,” Caffee said. “How can you believe them? They also say Joe Camel is not designed to get young people to smoke.”

Protests are planned in other California cities in coming weeks, said Caffee, whose group is funded by Proposition 99, which slapped a tax on cigarettes to underwrite anti-smoking efforts. On Thursday, the nationwide Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids announced a Say No to Menthol Joe Community Crusade.

This marks the third time in recent years that African American groups have mounted a protest against cigarette sales.

In 1995, a cigarette distributor in Massachusetts agreed to pull Menthol X from stores after protests that its packaging used images associated with Malcolm X. In 1990 Reynolds dropped its Uptown brand after then-U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Louis Sullivan blasted the company for allegedly targeting African Americans.