WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration is using ads that depict yellow teeth and wrinkled skin to show the nation's at-risk youth the costs associated with cigarette smoking.
The
federal agency said Tuesday it is launching a $115 million multimedia education
campaign called "The Real Cost" that's aimed at stopping teenagers
from smoking and encouraging them to quit.
Advertisements
will run in more than 200 markets throughout the U.S. for at least one year
beginning Feb. 11. The campaign will include ads on TV stations such as MTV and
print spots in magazines like Teen Vogue. It also will use social media.
"Our kids are the replacement
customers for the addicted adult smokers who die or quit each day," said
Mitch Zeller, the director of the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products. "And
that's why we think it's so important to reach out to them — not to lecture
them, not to throw statistics at them — but to reach them in a way that will
get them to rethink their relationship with tobacco use."
Zeller, who oversaw the anti-tobacco
"Truth" campaign while working at the nonprofit American Legacy
Foundation in the early 2000s, called the new campaign a "compelling,
provocative and somewhat graphic way" of grabbing the attention of more
than 10 million young people ages 12 to 17 that are open to, or are already
experimenting with, cigarettes.
According to the FDA, nearly 90 percent
of adult smokers started using cigarettes by age 18 and more than 700 kids
under 18 become daily smokers each day. The agency aims to reduce the number of
youth cigarette smokers by at least 300,000 within three years.
"While most teens understand the serious health risks
associated with tobacco use, they often don't believe the long-term
consequences will ever apply to them," said FDA Commissioner Margaret
Hamburg. "We'll highlight some of the real costs and health consequences
associated with tobacco use by focusing on some of the things that really
matter to teens — their outward appearance and having control and independence
over their lives."
Two
of the TV ads show teens walking into a corner store to buy cigarettes. When
the cashier tells them it's going to cost them more than they have, the teens
proceed to tear off a piece of their skin and use pliers to pull out a tooth in
order to pay for their cigarettes. Other ads portray cigarettes as a man
dressed in a dirty white shirt and khaki pants bullying teens and another shows
teeth being destroyed by a ray gun shooting cigarettes.
The
FDA is evaluating the impact of the campaign by following 8,000 people between
the ages of 11 and 16 for two years to assess changes in tobacco-related
knowledge, attitudes and behaviors.
The campaign announced Tuesday is the
first in a series of campaigns to educate the public about the dangers of
tobacco use.
In 2011, the FDA said it planned to spend
about $600 million over five years on the campaigns aimed at reducing death and
disease caused by tobacco, which is responsible for about 480,000 deaths a year
in the U.S.
Tobacco
companies are footing the bill for the campaigns through fees charged by the
FDA under a 2009 law that gave the agency authority over the tobacco industry.
Future
campaigns will target young adults ages 18-24 and people who influence teens,
including parents, family members and peers. Other audiences of special
interest include minorities, gays, people with disabilities, the military,
pregnant women, people living in rural areas, and low-income people.
By MICHAEL FELBERBAUM
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