me for recent increases in teensmoking. Like so many social crusaders before them, they'veoccasionally lapsed into self-righteousness - thereby invitingteens to take up cigarettes as the torch of fashionablerebellion. They have supported laws that allow police to arrestand fine teenagers caught with cigarettes - a strategy thatblames the young smoker instead of the marketers. The tobacco companies have worked hard in recent years todress their product as “forbidden fruit”. They've supported lawsthat allow police to arrest and fine teenagers caught withcigarettes, and promised not to oppose them as part of lastNovember's settlement. And they've launched massive campaignsthat are designed, supposedly, to combat teen smoking. The best approach seems to be the one that worked back inthe late '60s: satire. California, which funds anti-smokingcommercials with the proceeds of a 25-cent cigarette surtaxpassed in 1988, has led the way in this area. One of theirrecent ads features a group of distinguished young men intuxedos who light their cigarettes as a gorgeous young womanwalks in. As the announcer tells us about the link betweensmoking and impotence, their cigarettes suddenly go limp - andthe woman looks mockingly at them and walks away. ”Cigarettes,”the announcer says. “Still think they’re sexy?”These campaigns represent a promising start. But as theCalifornia example suggests, they're vulnerable to politicalmeddling. At the national level too, the tobacco industry, withtypical agility, has found a way to undermine them. Buried deepin last November's settlement agreement is a clause stating thatthe money spent on anti-smoking ads through a nationalfoundation created by the settlement for that purpose shall beused "only for public education and advertising regarding theaddictiveness, health effects, and social costs related to theuse of tobacco products and shall not be used for any personalattack on...
