Despite Promises, State Anti-Smoking Drive Lags

With no small amount of flourish, Gov. Gray Davis convened a news conference nearly a year ago to declare that he was renewing California’s war on tobacco use by launching a series of tough television ads attacking the industry.

“It’s time,” Davis proclaimed last May, “for this state to stand up for our children against the Joe Camels and Marlboro Men, and other seductive messages of addiction. Our ads will tell the truth in a plain, unvarnished fashion.”

Eleven months later, however, the Democratic governor’s campaign consists primarily of ads produced by his Republican predecessors and by other states. Several ads have been written and produced. But spots have yet to be aired.

A decade ago, California became the first state to combat smoking by criticizing the tobacco industry in tax-funded television ads. But other states have undertaken their own campaigns and now California is lagging. This state has not launched a broad new anti-tobacco ad campaign since March 1997, when Pete Wilson was governor.

Some activists say the effects may be showing up. The number of California adults who smoke remains low, probably below 18%. But a California Department of Health Services survey issued last week shows that cigarette sales by retailers to minors spiked sharply in the past year.

Frustrated California affiliates of the American Lung Assn., the American Heart Assn., the American Cancer Society and other anti-smoking advocates are employing some of the same tactics they used against Wilson when he balked at airing sharp-edged television spots. Like Wilson before him, Davis has become the target of critical ads funded by anti-smokers in various publications.

“I’m sadly surprised,” Kirk Kleinschmidt of the heart association said of Davis.

In an indication that the health groups’ pressure is having an impact, Davis administration officials said a new round of ads will start being aired in mid-May.

“Did it take a long time? Yes,” said Diana Bonta, Davis’ health director.

Bonta said she reviewed an additional 20 television, radio and billboard ads last week. Once she gives final approval, she said, Davis’ top aides have promised to make a decision within 24 hours. The first of the ads she reviewed last week could appear in as little as six weeks, Bonta said.

California’s anti-tobacco ad campaign is a small part of the state’s $400-million anti-tobacco program, funded by a 25-cent-per-pack tax on cigarettes imposed by voters when they approved Proposition 99 in 1988. But the ads also are the most high-profile aspect of the effort. Anti-smoking advocates cite research showing that strong ads can be especially effective in dissuading youths from starting to smoke, and at persuading others to quit.

Davis spokesman Michael Bustamante defended the governor’s record on the issue, citing increased funding for tobacco ads and more prevention efforts aimed at children. In his proposed budget for the new fiscal year, which starts in July, Davis is seeking to double spending on the ad campaign to $45 million.

Bustamante explained the delays by suggesting that Davis was bound by policies on approving anti-tobacco advertising established by Wilson.

“It was very frustrating. We’ve revamped it,” he said, calling the approval process a “labyrinth.”

The layered review process apparently has resulted in the demise of some ads. Some became outdated. At least one, seen as too controversial, is unlikely to be aired. Aimed at dissuading African Americans from smoking, the spot associates smoking with a type of slavery, asking: “Which brand is your master; what cigarette is your chain?”

“We can’t run an ad like that,” Bustamante said. “Some might consider it to be offensive.”

Brenda Bell Caffee, of the African American Tobacco Education Network, said that although the “slave” theme would stir passions, the controversy would ensure that the ads would have an impact. She also notes that the administration has released no new ads aimed at African Americans, Latinos or Asian Americans.

“With no ads, I wouldn’t doubt that we will have an increase in smoking,” she said.

Davis came to office with anti-tobacco credentials. In 1997, then-Lt. Gov. Davis joined a suit against the tobacco industry at a time when his Republican rival, Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, refused to join other states that had sued the industry. Davis later attacked Lungren’s record on tobacco in the 1998 gubernatorial campaign.

Once in office, Davis became the first governor to embrace California’s anti-tobacco advertising campaign by appearing at the news conference last May.

At that event, Davis announced that he was reversing a Wilson decision by airing two previously shelved ads--one of which was so pointed that it prompted a threat of a lawsuit from R.J. Reynolds.

That spot includes scenes of tobacco company executives testifying before Congress in the early 1990s that nicotine is not addictive, and ends with a voice saying: “Do they think we’re stupid?”

The other Wilson-era spot points out that some tobacco conglomerates with insurance subsidiaries give discounts on premiums to nonsmokers. “Say,” the narrator concludes, “what do those tobacco guys know that they aren’t telling you?”

Also in May, Davis released three other, far less pointed ads for television and billboards that were developed during his tenure. He and his aides also took the opportunity to say that more ads were in the works and would be released, starting last summer.

But in a report issued earlier this month, the state Department of Health Services’ tobacco control unit noted that the administration has rejected several ideas for ads dating to Davis’ first days in office, and has required script changes in many others.

The report, delivered to the California Tobacco Education and Research Oversight Committee, says revisions of nine ads have been pending in the governor’s office since Oct. 8.

“To maintain a media presence in California,” the report says, “the [state] is currently airing previously approved ads that best address current tobacco control concerns.”

By contrast, Gov. George Deukmejian’s administration began airing the first Proposition 99-funded ads in 1990, 65 days after the state signed a contract with the ad agency that developed the spots, notes Stanton A. Glantz, author of a recent book, “Tobacco War,” which traces the politics of tobacco in California.

Glantz, a UC San Francisco Medical School professor, was one of Wilson’s harshest critics and now is critical of Davis. The delay, he says, benefits tobacco companies, which are expert at marketing.

“The state’s media campaign has to be big, it has to be aggressive and it has to be nimble,” Glantz said. “The tobacco industry is constantly changing. It is going about its merry way and the state of California is doing essentially nothing to stop it.”