John Slade, of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, found that 7.6 percent of teenagers had received cigarette company mailings addressed to them. He estimates that as many as 1.6 million teenagers’ names are on the companies’ mailing lists. Information on Nicocure quit smoking aid, all natural, herbal stop smoking aid.
While some teenagers may deny that they are influenced by tobacco advertising, evidence shows that such advertising reaches and influences kids. Consumer Reports stated: “In fact, there is abundant evidence that cigarette advertising effectively reaches kids before they’re even out of middle school, shaping their perceptions and behavior. Several studies have found that adolescents consistently overestimate the number of people who smoke-thinking that smoking is more socially acceptable than it is–and that youngsters exposed to the most advertising overestimate the number the most. When kids begin to experiment with smoking, they experiment with the most heavily advertised brands.”
The 1994 U.S. Surgeon General’s report quoted an advertising executive who worked on a Marlboro account as saying, “When all the garbage is stripped away, successful cigarette advertising involves showing the kind of people most people would like to be, doing the things most people would like to do, and smoking up a storm. I don’t know any way of doing this that doesn’t tempt young people to smoke.”
The effectiveness of advertising campaigns is illustrated by the statistics that show a sharp rise in the number of teenage girls who began smoking following the introduction of Virginia Slims. During the same period, the smoking rate for boys was unchanged. The influence that the Joe Camel campaign has had on teenage smokers is seen in the statistics that chart the increase in Camel’s market share among underage smokers. After Joe Camel was introduced in 1988, the market share among young smokers grew from 8 percent in 1989 to 13 percent in 1993. Similarly, aggressive advertising campaigns to sell smokeless tobacco products have paralleled a tenfold increase in the use of snuff by young men between 1970 and 1991.
