Advocates for minors, minorities, women, and the poor are on the offensive, scoffing at tobacco company claims that cigarette promotions are not aimed at the groups most at risk for acquiring nicotine additction. So new ACS ads twist the tobacco industry's images of success and sophistication. Native Americans, who suffer very high addiction rates to many substances, are also incensed at the misuse of the word Dakota, which means friend, says Shirley Butts, RN, of Fort Totten, ND, a Turtle Mountain Chippewa and member of Dakotans Against Dakota Cigarettes. The industry does target women, minorities, and youth. Those associations can last a lifetime, as organizers of a boycott against Marlboro cigarettes and Miller beer are finding out.
People are very fond of their cigarette brands.
The graphics are part of who and what they are. Calif. Canada and other countries do have such bans, but Sheila Banks, media affairs director for Philip Morris USA, says the bans do not cut youth smoking rates. Finland, for example, has the world's highest rate of smoking among teenage boys despite a dozen years without tobacco advertising, she says. The harder you tell them not to do something the more they want to do it. Pertschuk's group uses that fact to turn tobacco ads inside out.