'Truth' campaign is reducing smoking

Inquirer Editorial
Posted: July 03, 2012

The success of a tough antismoking advertising campaign shows why Big Tobacco fights so hard against such efforts.

When presented with the facts, smokers really do want to quit. And the facts are exactly what a graphic $54 million advertising campaign run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides.

The "Tips From Former Smokers" campaign includes photos and videos of people suffering from the aftereffects of smoking. In one video, a man in a shower explains: "When you have a hole in your neck, don't face the showerhead." In another, the mother of a boy who contracted asthma from secondhand smoke, says: "Don't be shy to tell people not to smoke around your kids."

In only 12 weeks, the campaign doubled the number of phone calls to 1-800-QUIT-NOW. And it will probably exceed expectations by sending more than 500,000 people to the smokefree.gov website.

But the campaign must contend with the very powerful tobacco industry, which spends $10 billion a year on marketing alone.

Last year, the Food and Drug Administration decided to require that graphic labels be placed on all cigarette packs sold in the United States, including before-and-after comparisons of a smoker's lungs. Five drug companies protested the labels, huffing and puffing about freedom of speech. And a federal judge sided with them, declaring the FDA's project unconstitutional.

But a wiser federal appeals court in Cincinatti has ruled that the labels are constitutional, and President Obama has appealed the misguided judge's decision.

It's good to see the government become even more aggressive in its fight against smoking. Credit the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which put the FDA in charge of regulating tobacco products.

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