Daily Doc: TI?, Jun 10, 1985: Industry's "Youth Programs" Help Avoid Regulation
Daily Doc: Industry's "Youth Programs" Help Avoid Regulation
Title: Progress Report on the Responsible Living Program
TI?, Jun 10, 1985
Bates #: TIMN174575/4601
December 28, 2000
As we have already seen, the tobacco industry's "youth programs" help the industry deflect effective tobacco control legislation, regulation and increases in tobacco taxes. Such "kids don't smoke" programs also give the industry an aura of "self-regulation" which helps curry favor with, and give political cover to legislators who serve and protect the industry from regulation.
This document is essentially the transcript of a talk given by a member of the Tobacco Institute. In the talk, he is bragging about how about how the Tobacco Institute's "Helping Youth Decide" was used to help the industry avoid just such regulation:
"Our representatives in New Hampshire and Maryland...used program to help head off sampling and transportation ad bans in those states respectively ... In Wisconsin, TI's Responsible Living Program was used a couple of weeks ago ... to avoid attachment of a sampling ban to a measure establishing an 18-year minimum cigarette sales age.
"In California ... TI's Anne Browder testified, 'Helping Youth Decide' [helped] our people defeat half-cent cigarette tax increase earmarked for anti-smoking 'education' in the schools... "
CITATION
Title: Regarding Legal Advice Provided Concerning Industry Youth Initiative. (Bliley title)
Actual Title: Progress Report on the Responsible Living Program
NOTE: Documents in the Bliley Set were given nondescript "super titles" that effectively prevent the casual reader from quickly discovering the subject matter of the document. I call this bland, nondescript title the "Bliley Title." The original titles are somewhat more descriptive, but can only be seen when viewing the documents directly.
Type of Document: Report, speech, presentation
Author AHD (Tobacco Institute, inferred)
Recipient: N/A
Date: 19850610
Site: Tobacco Documents Online (Bliley set) http://www.tobaccodocuments.org/
Page Count 27
Bates No. TIMN174575/4601
URL: http://www.tobaccodocuments.org/view.cfm?docid=19654&source=BLILEY&ShowImages=yes
Found Using Search Criteria: "WHO and confidential," on TDO
QUOTES
Progress Report on the Responsible Living Program for the Communications Committee Monday, June 10, 1985
Almost two years ago in September 1983... when we first brought to this Committee the proposal that became the Institute's Responsible Living Program--we told you we had two objectives. The first objective was to increase public awareness that the tobacco industry does not market cigarettes to youngsters. The second... To demonstrate to public policy makers... and others concerned with the welfare of youngsters... that the industry is acting responsibly in this area...
...In July ExComm gave us the full go-ahead for a launch....in conjunction with our partners at the National Association of State Boards of Education. We broke the champagne bottle on September 25 and now, eight and a half months later, the bubbles are rising in our glass faster than ever...
We could only guess ... that because of the NASBE partnership ... the program might be difficult for our adversaries to damn...
Here are some words of praise that are, however, worth a slide... Yes -- members of our field staff and their legislative consultants have used "Helping Youth Decide" in varying ways --for varying purposes. Michigan counsel no doubt had something in mind for the future when he engineered this Special Tribute. . . Our representatives in New Hampshire and Maryland definitely did ... when they used program to help head off sampling and transportation ad bans in those states respectively ... In Wisconsin, TI's Responsible Living Program was used a couple of weeks ago ... to avoid attachment of a sampling ban to a measure establishing an 18-year minimum cigarette sales age.
In California ... TI's Anne Browder testified about "Helping Youth Decide" [to help] our people defeat half-cent cigarette tax increase earmarked for anti-smoking "education" in the schools.
[The "Helping Youth Decide" program has also won us] favorable comment and/or endorsement now from these other important state legislators: The California assembly leader, the president of the Illinois senate, the president pro-tem of the Michigan senate, the president of the New Hampshire senate, the chairman of the Missouri committee on children, youth and families, and the chairman of the Indiana house education committee who, despite his enthusiasm, couldn't quite swing that concurrent resolution.
[We have a] brand new folder on the program...Included [on it] is a Lung Association employee in Vermont who may soon be sorry she wrote NASBE she thought "Helping Youth Decide" well done and informative. We have not named the lady here on page 4, just the Lung Association.
This folder...will be available in quantity. We are working...to make good use of it...to stave off any threats to our industry's free and orderly marketing of its brands to adult smokers, wherever such threats may appear.
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Anne Landman, Regional Program Coordinator
American Lung Association of Colorado, West Region Office
Grand Junction, CO
(970) 245-2120
afoxland@gj.net
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