New Campaign Exhorts Philip Morris To Stop Advertising In Magazines With High Youth Readership.

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids is urging Philip Morris to stop all advertising in magazines with high youth readership.

In a new advertisment launched in The Washington Post, Philip Morris claims that its goal is "to responsibly market our products to adults who choose to smoke."

However, as the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids contends, Philip Morris continues to advertise in magazines with high youth readership, including Sports illustrated, People, Rolling Stone, Inside Sports, Hot Rod, Glamour, Vibe, Sport, Motor Trend, Spin, and Mademoiselle. According to a Simmons Market Research Bureau study, all of these magazines have youth readership (12 to 17 years old) totaling more than two million or more than 15 percent of the magazine's overall readership.

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids points out that while Philip Morris tells policy makers it supports youth tobacco prevention, Philip Morris and the other tobacco companies continue to spend $15.5 million a day--$5.6 billion a year-- on marketing their products, much of it in magazines and other venues that impact kids.

The Campaign challenges Philip Morris to cease all advertising in magazines with high youth readership or, at the very least, to abide by the magazine advertising provisions of the June 1997 settlement between the tobacco companies and the states. Philip Morris was a party to that agreement, which limited ads in newspapers and magazines with high youth readership to black and white text only.

The Campaign also urges Philip Morris to implement the following imperatives:

* Stop all marketing practices that appeal to and reach kids. In addition to magazine advertising, this includes in-store advertising in convenience stores and other retail outlets frequented by children.

* End its opposition to reasonable regulation of tobacco products by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and drop its lawsuit against the FDA.

* Take action to reduce the ease with which kids illegally obtain cigarettes, including allowing its products to be sold only in stores that place cigarettes behind the counter and eliminating vending machine, Internet and direct mail sales of cigarettes.