Still Smoldering

The smoking gun has changed hands.

The landmark November 1998 settlement between 46 states and four tobacco companies restricted marketing, especially sponsorships, branded premiums, sampling, and P-O-P, along with cartoons in ads and outdoor advertising. The settlement gave states a total of $206 billion, mostly to handle smoking-related health costs, and put the onus on states to fund anti-smoking campaigns.

Only six states have ponied up so far, according to Centers for Disease Control director Jeffrey Koplan. Speaking at the National Conference on Tobacco and Health in August, Koplan criticized most states for not spending more on prevention efforts, while praising Hawaii, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, Vermont and Washington for budgeting campaigns according to CDC guidelines. Ten other states have committed at least some settlement money to anti-smoking campaigns, but the rest have earmarked the money for tax cuts, prisons, scholarships and the like, Koplan says.

CDC estimates that states need to spend $8 billion to $21 billion over five years to run effective tobacco control programs.

Florida has been among the most aggressive, developing its own branding program dubbed “The Truth Campaign,” hosting concerts, and distributing T-shirts, hats, and posters. “We created a brand that’s cool to wear,” says Frank Penela, director of communications for the Florida Department of Health, Tallahassee. The department’s “Truth Truck” visits events like skateboard and beach volleyball tourneys to dispense info and Truth-brand premiums. The state has run 32 TV spots and a movie trailer dramatizing “the conspiracy among tobacco companies to poison people,” Penela says.

Florida plans to piggyback an upcoming Touchstone Pictures film called The Insider about tobacco-industry whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand.

The state’s campaign has been going on about a year as part of a $70 million pilot anti-smoking program. In that year, smoking fell 19 percent among middle-school students and eight percent among high schoolers, CDC reports. The state legislature reportedly cut funding to $30 million this year.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the National Cancer Institute tapped the U.S. Soccer Federation to form the national Smoke-Free Kids and Soccer program, using the growing popularity of women’s soccer to encourage a healthy lifestyle. Posters starring U.S. Women’s National team members are given away at the team’s games, local youth soccer events, via www.smokefree.gov, and municipal health departments.

As part of the national team’s tour, Minnesota raffled off a ball signed by team members and hosted a “Smoke a Defender, Not a Cigarette” contest, where kids could test their kick speed. Minnesota’s Department of Health also tapped WNBA team Minnesota Lynx to give away posters of player Kristen Folkl to girls attending baskteball games and clinics.

Meanwhile, tobacco giant Philip Morris has put some muscle behind its own youth prevention program. In February, PM pledged $4.3 million over two years to the National 4-H Council to fund an anti-smoking campaign targeting kids 10 to 14 years old. The program kicks off this month among 4-H clubs. The 4-H retains control of campaign materials, and can quit the partnership at any time – keeping any money not spent – if it feels like Philip Morris is encroaching on its independence.

The Chevy Chase, MD-based National 4-H Council is a private-sector partner to the 3,000 state and county 4-H programs overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

National 4-H Council develops programs to offer to 4-H groups. The tobacco prevention curriculum, which includes events, but no marketing, this month begins a two-year test via several local groups.

Some 4-H state boards were critical of accepting tobacco company funding, but the council defends its efforts to teach kids about healthy choices, and cites PM’s plan to partner with school systems to run smoking prevention programs.

The widow and son of actor David McLean, the original “Marlboro Man” from Philip Morris print and TV ads, got the go-ahead in August to proceed with their 1996 wrongful-death suit against Philip Morris. But a PM lawyer expects the case to eventually be dismissed, based on a ruling by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in a similar case.

The court dismissed the San Juanita and Reyes Sanchez wrongful-death suit against Liggett & Myers because Texas law says a company can’t be held liable when a danger such as tobacco-induced illness is so obvious and widely known. At press time, PM and its law firm, Wehner & York, Washington, DC, were considering whether to ask the judge to reconsider dismissing McLean’s suit based on the Sanchez dismissal.

McLean died of lung cancer in `95 at age 73; he had smoked since he was 12. PM’s first motion to dismiss the suit was rejected Aug. 13 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, and sent directly to the Court of Appeals without trial, according to Wehner & York.