PROMOTIONAL ITEMS ARE STRONGLY LINKED TO YOUTH SMOKING

By Terence Monmaney
Los Angeles Times
International Herald Tribune December 16 1997

LOS ANGELESSchool children who sport clothing and gear emblazoned with
cigarette names and logos are four times more likely to smoke than other
children, according to a study suggesting that such promotional items may
foster youth smoking.

The study, which is the largest to test the correlation between smoking
rates and ownership of cigarette merchandise among public school students,
was based on a survey of 1,265 youngsters in grades 6 through 12 at five
schools in rural Vermont and New Hampshire. Children in those grades
usually range in age from 12 to 18.

The study found that the merchandise was substantially more prevalent, and
more tightly linked with lighting up, than researchers had previously
observed.

The researchers found that 32 percent of the children surveyed owned
promotional merchandise. Tshirts and hats were the most common items;
Marlboro and Camel the most popular brands. Most of the items came from
parents or adult friends but 22 percent of the children with an item said
that stores or cigarette company catalogs sold it to them directly, in
violation of federal laws.

Moreover, 4.8 percent of the children said they had a promotional item with
them on the day of the survey, in October 1996. And because the results
indicated that each item taken to school was seen by 10 other children, the
findings "raised the possibility that children were becoming the means
through which cigarettes were being promoted
to other children," wrote the physicianresearchers, who are based at
Dartmouth Medical School in Hanover, New Hampshire, and the Veterans
Affairs Medical Center in White River Junction, Vermont.

A youngster was more likely to smoke if he or she owned a promotional item,
the researchers say. Among the 12thgraders, 32 percent overall were
classified as smokers, meaning they admitted to having smoked more than 100
cigarettes.

But 58 percent of those who owned a promotional item smoked compared with
23 percent of those who did not own one. The association was strongest in
the lower grades, which especially concerned the researchers because that
is when crucial attitudes toward smoking are being formed. Only 3 percent
of sixthgraders were classified as smokers, but all of them said they
owned a promotional item.

"This is the most powerful demonstration yet that these promotional items
have a disproportionate impact on kids," said Matthew Myers, executive vice
president of the National Center for Tobacco Free Kids.

Tobacco company spokesmen disputed the findings, which were made public
over the weekend in an American Medical Association journal, the Archives
of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.

Although tobacco companies are prohibited by federal law from selling or
giving cigaretterelated merchandise to people under 18 children still end
up with hats, Tshirts, backpacks and other gear displaying cigarette brand
names and trademarks.

In recent years, the tobacco industry has boosted spending on merchandise
giveaways and catalog sales, from $307 million in 1990 to $665 million in
1995, according to the most recent Federal Trade Commission records.

Meanwhile, national youth smoking rates have risen l per.cent to 2 percent
annually since 1992. In 1996, it was estimated that 34 percent of
12thgraders smoked.