Big Tobacco Tricks Children Again
Big Tobacco is marketing to children with what are referred to as “next generation” tobacco products. This came as a surprise to me. I had thought that “Joe Camel” was dead and gone — probably died from lung cancer after the California litigation that revealed R.J. Reynold’s intentional campaign to market tobacco to children to ensure future generations of customers. Notably, this litigation settled out of court with an agreement by R.J. Reynolds to pull the Joe Camel stuffed animals, toys and other trinkets from the shelves. But what I had not realized was that, although there was pressure from Congress on the table when Old Joe was retired, we did not receive a court order banning Big Tobacco from marketing to children.
I grew up in the 1970’s and have distinct memories of riding my banana seat bike with streamers to the local candy store with my pockets heavy with pennies. I spent hours looking over the glossy labels, promises of great artificial flavors and many selections shining down the candy aisle. I walked back and forth trying to figure out the maximum candy purchases that I could buy with my pocket of pennies. Tootsie Rolls® and the other penny candies were sure bets to fill in between the pricier candy bars and medium priced treats. I recall candy diamond rings, lollypops, pop rocks, and many other brightly packaged offerings that I had learned of during Saturday morning cartoon commercials. I also recall seeing candy cigarettes. There were two kinds. The first were white candy with red dyed ends. They came in cigarette pack packaging and you ate them. The second variety was bubble gum, individually rolled into white paper wraps, again packaged to look like a pack of cigarettes. If you exhaled through them, the bubble gum threw off dust, giving the appearance of smoke. We sometimes purchased the gum cigarettes and sat on our bikes in the convenience store parking lot blowing smoky dust through the white wrapping thinking that we were presenting an aura of “cool” envied by high school kids and younger kids alike. Big Tobacco marketing was working.
Yet now it is worse. Now Big Tobacco is not only providing candy that looks like tobacco, but tobacco that looks like candy. Now kids are not trying to look like they are smoking, but instead are being tricked into thinking they are eating candy — when really they are being duped by Big Tobacco into ingesting nicotine.
According to Angela Clock, Executive Director of Tobacco Free Michigan, Big Tobacco now markets e-liquid tobacco products that taste and look like candy. In a speech before the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network during a day of lobbying at the state capital, she explained that the tobacco look-alikes sometimes are even sold at prices lower than the prices for candy. Children may walk into a convenience store and see an aisle or counter display of candy that includes true candy sugar snacks like Jolly Ranchers® and Skittles®. These are genuine candy snacks. But alongside the true candy, tobacco intentionally lurks. There are tobacco products now packaged to mimic the packaging of candies by using bright colors, names and fonts designed to confuse the juvenile consumer into believing that the tobacco laden imposters are real candy. And the “power wall” displays are designed to attract youth. The next generation products use packaging, colors and flavors to target market to children. The U.S. Surgeon General reports that the more young people are exposed to cigarette advertising and promotional activities, the more likely they are to smoke. There exist “next generation” e-liquid tobacco products colored and flavored to appear like real Jolly Rancher® candy — using the very same artificial colors and flavors signature to the Jolly Rancher® candy. Angela Clock’s presentation included that a May 2014 study revealed that in addition to the Jolly Rancher® flavoring, there are also tobacco products using Kool Aid® flavorings. But perhaps, just perhaps, Big Tobacco employs extremely inept marketing teams that really are aiming for a market segment of men over the age of 50 with neon packaged cotton candy and gummie bears flavored tobacco products.
It extends to breath mints. Children may find packages that appear to be Altoids,® ICE® or Tic Tac® mints, which are actually cleverly masked tobacco products hiding out for minors to mistakenly grab in lieu of genuine breath mints. Why aren’t the breath mint companies infuriated by the trade dress misappropriation, loss of sales due to customer confusion, deceptive trade practices and Lanham Act brand tarnishment that is happening because Big Tobacco is pretending to be a breath mint? Kodiak® sells a circular “ICE” tin of tobacco that is confusingly similar to the packaging of ICE® mints. Juveniles have a diminished ability to be able to distinguish between the tobacco and non-tobacco look-alikes. Camel® Snus® have the appearance of a tin of mints, Camel Strips® look like Listerine® breath strips, and Camel® Orbs® Fresh are physically shaped and packaged confusingly similar to the packaging used for Tic Tac® mints, which Angela Clock reports has proven in at least one study to confuse teenagers into thinking that the tobacco product was a candy.
There are new tobacco snack sticks that mimic the Oreo® FunStix, Pringles® Stix and other varieties of food snacks. And tobacco products are now available that look like tooth picks, asthma inhalers, and more.
There are candy and fruit flavored cigars to be found as well. I mistakenly thought some of these were lip gloss based upon the packaging. Many of these fruit cigars are close in size and shape to cigarettes, but have to be marketed as cigars to get around state laws prohibiting sales of fruit flavored cigarettes. Not to be thwarted, Big Tobacco created “mini” fruit flavored cigars in flavors such as a strawberry and grape. The “next generation” tobacco choices include e-cigarettes, snus, sticks, strips, orbs, hookah, dokha and dissolvables. Big Tobacco considers these starter products aimed to get new customers in the addiction door. This adds to the more traditional tobacco choices still available including cigarettes, cigars, spit, chew, snuff and pipes. And candy and gum cigarettes are still out there too — Victory, Target and Spaceman brands come to mind. Last week I happened upon a Dylan’s Candy Bar in Traverse City, Michigan fish bowl display of candy cigarettes on the check-out counter. Disgusted, I asked the clerk to remove them since the store was packed with its intended market share — children, but it remained in place for all who made purchases to touch during checkout. And now it seems that we have bubble gum fruit flavored cigars.
In viewing pictures of candy and next generation tobacco products, I can no longer tell the difference. Minors have less of an ability to discriminate labels to figure out whether it is candy or tobacco. The intentionally created confusion benefits one: Big Tobacco.
And now let’s jump to middle school– the cesspool for peer pressure, testing limits and striving for new found independence. Common sights — a child brings in a pack of gum and offers pieces to friends at her locker. Someone in gym class offers you a mint afterwards in the locker room. Teachers view a child using an asthma inhaler in class. A girl applies lip gloss at her locker. But thanks to next generation tobacco innovations, all of these incidents could be tobacco use. How to we police this? It is quite possible that a child raised to “just say no” to bad drugs and cigarettes may inadvertently and unknowingly become addicted to tobacco by ingesting what was believed to be a snack.
You might think that even with all of the tobacco marketing to children, our children are protected by state or federal laws disallowing sales of cigarettes to minors under age 18. Remember the Michigan initiative of keeping tobacco purchases to 21 and older? (It never was signed into law.) In practice, Michigan is not enforcing the 18 and over tobacco sales rules for flavored tobacco offerings and allows children to buy these candy mimicking products. I had heard this. Yet I had to investigate. I drove throughout different counties in the State of Michigan (this time in a car, not on my banana seat bike) from Lansing to Mackinac, and I viewed the candy and tobacco side-by-side or front-and-back-of-counter and “power wall” displays. I point blank asked sales clerks whether sales of the next generation tobacco products are made to minors. At every convenience store, I was told that such sales are not being stopped. Cigarettes — yes. Consensus on the front line was that customers are being carded for cigarettes and the law enforced. But not for the next generation flavored nicotine products. This problem is not unique to Michigan.
The CDC confirms that tobacco use and addiction typically begin during adolescence, and the U.S. Surgeon General has concluded that the use of products containing nicotine in any form among youth, including in e-cigarettes, is unsafe. Big Tobacco claims that it is marketing only to adult smokers, but regardless of intent, this marketing encourages underage youth to smoke. Nearly 9 out of 10 smokers start smoking by age 18, and more than 80% of underage smokers choose brands from among the top three most heavily advertised. In a report by the U.S. Surgeon General published March 27, 2017, conclusions show not only the devastating impact to the current and future health of our kids if they begin tobacco use, but also that this is a diminished capacity consumer — more susceptible to peer pressure and less able to comprehend the impact of trying tobacco.
Lack of enforcement coupled with parity over tobacco taxation allows Big Tobacco to sneak into your child’s bedroom at night. Most states tax cigarettes at a rate much higher than other tobacco products are taxed. This allows for the lower prices for the “next generation” products and pricing the “candy tobacco” lower than the prices of real candy. For example, Michigan currently taxes cigarettes at $2 per pack. Other tobacco products in Michigan are only taxed 32% of wholesale. This makes the other non-cigarette tobacco products cheaper and more accessible for minors. In Michigan, nearly 12% of high school students smoke. Nationwide, nearly 15% of high school males use smokeless tobacco products, such as these “next generation” offerings. The American Cancer Society CAN is currently lobbying for a 81% tax of wholesale across the board for all tobacco products in Michigan.
At a minimum, we must equal the tobacco tax across the board so that there is parity between cigarette tax and tax for the other tobacco products. Children tend to be less able to absorb a price increase. If the tobacco tax was applied evenly for the next generation hidden tobacco laced products, the price of the tobacco product would be higher than the real candy product. Instead, price promotions for tobacco drive kids to purchasing the nicotine products. Children would purchase candy over tobacco hidden as candy and the clear difference in price could act as a clue to kids that this is tobacco and not candy. But until Big Tobacco: (1) stops deceptive marketing practices (“not”) aimed towards an under 18 customer; (2) stops intentionally causing consumer confusion between tobacco and candy products by its packaging, and (3) otherwise stops trying to addict my kid with its candy-mimicking “starter” products, you had better believe that our car ride home from middle school tonight will include an addendum to the “bad drug” lecture to forbid sharing any gum, mints, candy or food with anyone.
