IN-DEPTH SPECIAL: Tobacco under attack

June 30, 1999
Web posted at: 10:06 p.m. EDT (0206 GMT)

WORCESTER, Massachusetts (CNN) -- Tobacco sales to underage smokers generate big money for the tobacco industry as well as for states and the federal government, according to a study to be published in the July issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

Despite a federal requirement that individual states enforce a prohibition on the sale of cigarettes to minors, an estimated 3.76 million daily smokers aged 12 through 17 smoked an estimated 924 million packs of cigarettes in 1997, according to the study.

That represented $1.86 billion of tobacco sold, according to the findings. Federal coffers gained $222 million, and state revenues increased by $293 million, the study concluded.

Tobacco companies profited by $480 million from smokers under age 18 in 1997, up from 1988 estimated profits of $221 million, according to the study.

Youths under age 18 smoked 3.9 percent of all cigarettes sold in the United States in 1997 -- up from 3.3 percent in 1988, according to the study's lead author, Joseph R. DiFranza at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester.

He concluded that revenues from cigarettes smoked by youths "could be used to enforce laws prohibiting the sale of tobacco to minors."

Teen tobacco attractions already banned

The major issues regarding underage smoking and cigarette marketing were resolved by a 1998 tobacco settlement, according to Jan Smith, spokeswoman for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

"It bans ads that target minors, bans billboards, cartoon characters, brand logo merchandise, movie placements, and severely restricts promotional programs and sampling," Smith said.

Further, she said, the settlement resulted in "unprecedented cigarette price increases" that have discouraged youth smoking.

"We don't want kids to smoke," said Smith. "Period."

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