• 5/20/2007
  • Tahlequah, OK
  • Teddye Snell
  • Tahlequah Daily Press (www.tahlequahdailypress.com)

Although “Joe Camel” virtually disappeared after a 1998 settlement between the states and the tobacco companies, the industry’s marketing to children has not. And that concerns Louise Micolites.
Micolites, coordinator for the Cherokee County Tobacco Control Program, and understands the need to prevent youth from using tobacco products.

“Tobacco is so hard to quit; the best thing to do is never start,” said Micolites. “Big Tobacco knows most people who smoke begin before they turn 18, and most of those become lifelong customers.”
Cherokee County Health Coalition Coordinator Carol McKiel gets angry just thinking about children being used as targets for boosting tobacco sales.

“Tobacco may not be able to advertise on TV anymore, but you see smoking in Disney movies,” said McKiel. “A new study by Dartmouth Medical School shows smoking in movies has increased in recent years.”
According to the press release issued by Dartmouth, the study McKiel refers to suggests exposure to movie smoking accounts for smoking initiation among more than one-third of the U.S. adolescents. It concludes that limiting exposure of young adolescents to movie smoking could have important public health implications.
This report and others have led Congress to seek possible FDA regulation of tobacco. Dr. Elmer Huerta, incoming president of the American Cancer Society and director of the Cancer Preventorium at the Washington Hospital Center, testified before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions in February about such regulation.

“The need for FDA regulation of tobacco is great and its benefits are clear,” said Huerta in his testimony. “The tobacco industry made voluntary promises as part of the Master Settlement Agreement [March, 1999] that it would stop marketing to children. Those promises have been broken. Our children have been left unprotected, and the tobacco industry has taken advantage of that loophole in sinister fashion.”
According to Huerta, the most popular cigarettes among children are brands most heavily advertised, including Marlboro, Camel and Newport. Huerta believes several factors aided in tobacco companies’ continued marketing campaigns.

First, the agreement didn’t place restrictions on advertising print media, such as magazines. Huerta told senators cigarette advertising in youth-oriented magazines increased in the two years after the MSA. Second, the MSA didn’t limit or restrict in-store advertising, “knowing that 75 percent of teens visit a convenience store at least once a week,” said Huerta.

Finally, Huerta said the MSA did not establish an enforceable system and comprehensive set of rules to restrict or eliminate all major tobacco advertising and marketing tools that have influence on children.

“Because the tobacco companies remain unregulated and unchecked, they have circumvented the limited advertising restrictions placed on them by the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement and continue to target children,” said Huerta.

Two recent examples include Brown and Williamson’s “Kool Mixx” campaign, and R.J. Reynolds’ candy-flavored cigarettes. The Kool Mixx campaign focuses its marketing around music and hip-hop. According to Huerta, the campaign included 14 music concerts, a DJ competition and a special-themed pack of cigarettes.

On a local level, Micolites works with area youth to prevent tobacco addiction through Students Working Against Tobacco, a program offered to sixth- through 12th-grade students.

“We have six, school-based teams, and one non-traditional team, including Tahlequah High, Middle and Alternative Schools, Woodall, Tenkiller, and Sequoyah High School,” said Micolites. “The other team is based at Kid Connection Inc., the local Christian Children’s Fund affiliate.”

Cherokee County SWAT has 138 active members, one of whom is serving on the American Legacy National Youth Advisory Board, and another who received the 2007 Oklahoma SWAT Youth Advocate of the Year award, said Micolites.

Micolites group has partnered with Cherokee Nation Healthy Nation and the local Oklahoma Commission on Children and Youth to bring Rick Bender, former semi-professional baseball player and national spokesman for the “No Snuff” campaign to speak to area youth. Bender travels all over the U.S. talking to students about the effects of tobacco use and how his own addiction impacted his life.
“It nearly cost him his life,” said Micolites. “He was fortunate to only lose half his lower jaw, a third of his tongue, and all the flesh connecting the right side of his neck with the rest of his body as a result of chewing tobacco.”

Bender chewed tobacco for 14 years before being diagnosed with oral cancer. He now helps deliver the “anti-spit” message, which is intended to save lives.

Bender has already visited students in Adair, Sequoyah and Cherokee counties this year to talk about how using snuff and other smokeless tobacco harmed him.

Micolites and SWAT members are also working locally to reduce tobacco industry influence.

“Our approach to this is to reduce the amount of tobacco advertisements around local stores,” said Micolites. “SWAT members are planning to help ‘beautify’ stores by offering to help clean participating businesses inside and out, in exchange for removal of a number of signs.

“Ask an adult smoke if they know where to buy their favorite brand of cigarettes or chewing tobacco and they will tell you they don’t pay attention to the signs. This begs the question, who are those signs for? We think they’re aimed at potential new customers, like young people. The tobacco industry knows if they can get young people to start, they will have a long and lucrative relationship with them.”
Micolites knows hers is an uphill battle, despite the momentum of the public health movement in Oklahoma.

“We’ll never have the budget of tobacco companies,” said Micolites. “Oklahoma is doing well, and is spending the MSA money wisely, with protection for the funding by the creation of the Oklahoma Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust. A lot of other states wish they were in our position.”