Congratulations, Ms. Slocum!
Soon you will be approached by all manner of sponsors wanting to get a piece of the crown and publicity. One of these sponsors will be RJ Reynolds maker of Camel #9s, in the sleek pink and black packaging and promotion targeting young women.
RJR will offer you large dollars to promote in schools a program they fund that is ostensibly a tobacco prevention program directed toward youth. If you find it odd that a tobacco company would support effective tobacco prevention you would be right. The Centers for Disease Control cites research showing that tobacco company funded programs to reduce youth use not only are ineffective but may increase youth initiation to tobacco.
This particular program, 'Right Decisions, Right Now', by focusing on telling young people to resist peer pressure, infers that tobacco use is somehow more popular than they realized. Research has shown young people are twice as likely to smoke because of tobacco advertising than peer pressure. Additionally, this program portrays smoking as an activity only adults should choose. Can you think of a better way to get kids to want to smoke?
Miss Slocum, Miss Arkansas, I encourage you to take the high road and refuse to be the pawn of an industry that calls kids, “replacement smokers.” Your status and role model are so important to so many people. Please use it intelligently.
Thank you and good luck.
p.s. you can learn more about tobacco industry tactics here: http://no-smoke.org/document.php?id=276
No comments:
Post a Comment