STUDY LINKS CIGARETTE GEAR, YOUTH SMOKING

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

Although tobacco companies are not allowed by federal regulations to sell
or give cigaretterelated merchandise to people under 18, children still
end up with hats, Tshirts, backpacks and other gear displaying cigarette
brand names and trademarks. Public health experts and antismoking
advocates have sharply criticized the promotions, saying the items might
function as a sort of stealth advertising that interests children in
smoking. 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.

Additional hundreds of millions have been invested annually in items sold
at retail stores or "purchased" with cigarette pack coupons. Meanwhile,
national youth smoking rates have risen 1% to 2% annually since 1992. In
1996, it was estimated that 34% of 12thgraders smoked. The new 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 six through 12 at five facilities
in rural Vermont and New Hampshire. It found that the merchandise was
substantially more prevalent, and more tightly linked with lighting up,
than researchers previously observed.

The researchers found that 32% of the youngsters 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% 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% 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 youngsters,
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, N.H., and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in White River
Junction, Vt.

A youngster was more likely to smoke if he or she owned a promotional item,
the researchers say. Among the 12thgraders, 32% overall were classified as
smokers, meaning they admitted to having smoked more than 100 cigarettes.
But 58% of those who owned a promotional item smoked, compared to 23% 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% 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
spokespersons disputed the findings, which were made public Sunday in an
American Medical Assn. journal, the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent
Medicine. The study also uncovered strong evidence of family and peer
pressure on smoking trends: The likelihood that youngsters smoked was
boosted nearly seven times if they had friends who did so, and 28 times if
both friends and family members smoked.

The lead author, Dartmouth pediatrician Dr. James Sargent, said that a
survey cannot prove that the promotional items caused the children to start
smoking. Still, he said the results clearly show that the merchandise
appears to put very young children at greater risk of experimenting with
cigarettes. John Pierce, a cancer prevention expert at UC San Diego who
has studied cigarette advertisements' effect on children, said he was
impressed that about a third of the youngsters in the new study had
promotional items. In a random telephone survey of California residents in
1993, Pierce and his coworkers found that 9% of people of high school age
had such an item. "If it was a problem [then], it's a much bigger problem
now," he said.

Tobacco companies pointed out that cigarette promotional items were around
long before the recent increase in youth smoking. Peggy Carter, a
spokeswoman for R.J. Reynolds, maker of Camel, said the "bottom line" was
that the research did not establish causality. Beyond that, she said, the
company takes numerous steps to prevent minors from purchasing company
merchandising. Catalog orders require a signature attesting that a customer
is over 21, and the company uses five databases to protect against fraud,
including motor vehicle and voter registries, she said. "We wish that
parents would not tolerate their children having items associated with our
brands," she said.

"We think it's inappropriate. But that's an issue between parents and
children." The FTC has a lawsuit pending against R.J. Reynolds, alleging
that the nowdefunct Joe Camel advertising and merchandising campaign
appealed to minors, said Lee C. Peeler, associate director for advertising
practices at the FTC. A call to Philip Morris, maker of Marlboro, was
referred to a public relations agency handling the tobacco companies' side
of the proposed settlement with states suing the industry for
smokingrelated medical costs.

A ban on promotional items is also part of the industry's settlement offer
with the states. The Food and Drug Administration moved to eliminate the
merchandising as part of its sweeping new purview over tobacco products,
but a federal court ruled in April that the agency had no jurisdiction over
tobacco advertising issues. That ruling is being appealed. In suggesting
the link between promotional items and youth smoking, the new study appears
to overstate the growth of tobacco industry spending on the items. It says
that such spending went from $310 million in 1990 to $1.25 billion in
1994a fourfold increase. But the earlier figure does not include
promotional coupons redeemed for cigarettes in addition to merchandise,
whereas the more recent spending figure does.

The FTC reports that combined merchandising and cigarettepromotion totals
were $1.49 billion in 1990 and $2.1 billion in 1994a 41% increase.

Copyright Los Angeles Times