Tobacco companies invest significant time, energy and money to advertise and create positive public relations for themselves.  In our May issue, we highlighted the ways that tobacco companies reach out to parents by creating advertisements that appear in reliable parent resources, such as Parents and Family Circle magazines.  However, parenting magazines are not the only place that the tobacco companies try to portray themselves as a legitimate player in youth tobacco prevention.

Tobacco companies also try to prop up their image by distributing e-newsletters with information for parents about prevention and providing tobacco education materials to schools. There are many differences between information provided by legitimate sources of prevention materials and the information that the tobacco companies provide. The tobacco companies' message in these materials is that kids should not use tobacco.  This is very true; however, they make no mention in these so-called prevention materials that tobacco is unhealthy for everyone.  By emphasizing that tobacco should not be used when underage, they are glamorizing tobacco use and making it seem as though it is a rebellious, cool thing to do.

Words that are used regularly in the tobacco companies' education materials are adolescence, minors, young, underage, negative health effects and harmful.  What you don't see are words such as addictive, deadly, lung cancer, heart disease, stroke, death, tooth decay and many other specific negative health effects that come along with smoking and using other tobacco products. In these materials, there is also no mention of industry manipulation.  Tobacco companies will spend billions promoting their deadly products, and then place all of the responsibility on the  parents and teachers to help youth make the right decisions.  The truth is that it's more than peer pressure and parental involvement; rather, it's the way that the message is portrayed that tobacco use is an adult activity that influences youth decisions.  We urge all parents and people who work with youth to examine who is creating and distributing tobacco prevention materials before considering them to be a reliable source of information for prevention.