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Dear Relieved,
My answer to the first two questions is "no" and
to the third, a definite "yes." Other than my basic
disgust with an industry which recruits kids at a rate of 3,000
a day to use a product which kills 400,000 people a year, I wouldn't
trust the efficacy of any agreement with the tobacco industry
as far as I can spit with a dry mouth!
As for my first "no".... After broadcast advertising
was banned in 1971, cigarette logos popped up everywhere: race
cars on TV, stadium banners, sky writing...you name it. Now they
have ads which use the innocent ply: "We don't want kids
to smoke, smoking is for adults." To kids, that says the
easiest way to be an adult is to light up a cigarette. The settlements
does nothing to limit the practice of selling to children overseas...recruiting
them to make up for the losses in the American adolescent market.
In China, for example, their National Tobacco Corp. has a joint
venture agreement with R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris. It is
no accident that 40% of Chinese youngsters aged 13 to 18 smoke.
As noted by The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), if American
kids see their international peers smoking, if they see British
rock stars and Asian movie stars lighting up, be assured the
tobacco industry will have gotten its message across: "it's
‘cool' to smoke."
As for putting the industry out of business, I look at the
settlements as a win-win proposition for the industry...they
will simply pass all expenses on to smokers with no loss of profit.
I agree with the AAP that the only real settlement would call
for a ban on all advertising, for FDA regulation on nicotine,
a heavy federal tax to use for education and enforcement measures
to reduce tobacco use by children, and for the continued right
to file class action suits. Should we feel badly if this should
put most of the tobacco industry out of business? I don't think
so.
As for convincing your kids not to smoke... other than the
obvious of laying down the law in your household and of not smoking
yourself, you must recognize that children don't like to be used
and manipulated any more than you do. Help them understand the
reasons benefits advertising, how it works, and how to resist
it.
Adolescents are concrete thinkers, they don't take into account
what is bad down the line. They feel invincible.....they don't
care about cancer at 50 or a heart attack at 70. They don't believe
they will become addicted. They will "just try it for a
while" and then feel sure that they "can always quit."
It is the immediate concerns, not the long term health effects
that matter to adolescents, so emphasize them.
Talk about the way smoking affects them now. That means short
term effects such as bad breath, yellow teeth and fingernails,
coughing and shortness of breath, frequent upper respiratory
infections. For both sexes emphasize that the results of smoking
can turn off the opposite sex, e.g., stinking hair, breath and
clothes and early wrinkling of the skin.
For kids who love sports, smoking can slow down a member of
the track or swimming team. A pack a day smoking habit now costs
over $1,000 a year which can make a mighty big dent in the ability
to buy desired CDs, sweaters and sneakers or tickets to concerts.
Unfortunately, most of our area schools are not doing beans
about student smoking, so it looks like its up to you as a parent
to act...... just as it should be. |
