ANTI-SMOKING ADS TARGET MEN'S SEX LIVES

State campaign links tobacco use with impotence.

California is unloading on the tobacco industry with a new $22 million
ad campaign that takes aim at smokers -- directly below the belt.

A centerpiece of the latest batch of billboards, radio ads and
television spots unveiled yesterday is a theme that smoking can play
havoc with a guy's sex life.

With special effects that make cigarettes suddenly sag and dangle from
a young man's lips when a sexy woman steps into the picture -- the
message is that smoking is linked to impotence.

``The Marlboro Man may not be everything he's cracked up to be,'' said
Kim Belshe, director of the state Department of Health Services, which
coordinates the ad campaign.

The state health department cites a study of Vietnam veterans that
showed smokers reported impotence 50 percent more than nonsmokers.
Belshe said the purpose of the new ad was that ``men not inclined to
quit to save their lives, save their heart, save their lungs may quit
to save their sex life.''

The ads didn't satisfy critics who complain that the Wilson
administration has become too meddlesome over the style and content of
the anti-smoking ads, paid for by a 25-cents-a-pack tax on tobacco
products.

``There have been a number of stronger, hard-hitting approaches that
have been quashed by the administration,'' said Paul Knepprath, a
lobbyist for the American Lung Association.

The new campaign also drew fire from University of California at San
Francisco professor Stanton Glantz, a leading critic of the tobacco
industry.

``Since the department pulled back and toned down the program in 1994,
we have seen the first increase in smoking in California since they
started collecting data in 1974,'' he said.

Glantz said a new batch of ads could have been ready as early as last
September, had not Wilson cabinet secretary Sandra Smoley intervened.
``What we have is a campaign that will do the a minimum of damage to
the tobacco industry,'' Glantz said.

Belshe stressed several times the 10-year-old media campaign has
attacked the tobacco industry for marketing to children and lying
about the dangers of its products.

Smoley told reporters the ``determination of what ads went on fell
with Kim'' and herself. And, she added, the winning spots were
selected based on their effectiveness.

The spots themselves were created by several ad agencies from around
the state. They will receive roughly $1.3 million for their efforts.
And there are several choice shots at tobacco companies.

``They can bury their victims, but they can't bury the truth,'' reads
one ad that features ``Aaron,'' a 60-year-old man lying in a hospital
bed, terminally ill with lung cancer.

Aaron reads a statement from the head of a tobacco company in which
the executive says ``it is unclear whether anybody dies from smoking."
``Well, let me clear things up for him. My doctor says I have less
than one year to live,'' Aaron concludes.

But the ad that won the most kudos from health groups was the one
linking smoking to male impotence.

A woman in a low-cut gown walks majestically into what appears to be a
swanky restaurant. Across the bar, a tuxedo-clad man taps a cigarette
on his ornate cigarette case.

The man and woman's eyes lock. He lights up the cigarette.
It goes limp.

``Cigarettes. Still think they're sexy?'' the ad concludes.

1998 San Francisco Chronicle

Checked-by: (trikydik)