Newsclips 2001 – 2003
HANNITY & COLMES, Fox News Channel
Sean Hannity, Alcee Hastings
3,141 words
8 January 2001
09:00 pm
Fox News Channel: Hannity & Colmes
SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: Welcome to HANNITY & COLMES. We’re glad you’re with us. I’m Sean Hannity.
I’d first like to welcome Florida Congressman Alcee Hastings to the show. He’ll be filling in for Alan Colmes tonight. And the congressman, by the way, made news this very weekend, challenging Florida’s electoral votes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ALCEE HASTINGS (D), FLORIDA: Mr. President — and I take great pride in calling you that — I must object because of the overwhelming evidence of official misconduct.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: We will be debating that. We are going down that road.
(CROSSTALK)
HASTINGS: Right down that road.
HANNITY: Coming up in just a few minutes.
And also coming up tonight: Should a President Bush pardon a soon-to- be former President Clinton? Tonight analysis from Ohio Congressman, our good friend, John Kasich.
Plus: Are smokers’ rights being violated? It seems that many cities are cracking down on smoking even outside and in your own apartment. Can you believe this? We’ll ask the grandson of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco about that.
But first, leading out debate across America this Monday: Two Bush cabinet appointees are under fire. Labor secretary-designate Linda Chavez was already facing criticism for her views on Affirmative Action and sexual harassment. She’s now accused of housing and possibly employing an illegal immigrant in the early 1990s. Marta Mercado immigrated from Guatemala and stayed with Chavez for about a year. And Mercado occasionally did jobs around the house and received money but claims she was not formally employed by Chavez.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
News; Domestic
How Far Should States Go to Keep Tobacco From Kids?
Sean Hannity, Alcee Hastings
2,599 words
8 January 2001
09:20 pm
Fox News: Hannity & Colmes
Federal Document Clearing House.
HANNITY: And welcome back to HANNITY & COLMES. I’m Sean Hannity.
Coming up later in the show: Congressman Hastings and I — we’re going to go one on one on the issues that he was involved in this weekend, the controversy. You’re always stirring up trouble wherever you go. We’ll get into that.
Plus, former congressman John Kasich will stop by for a look ahead at the first 100 days of the Bush administration.
But first, for our top newsmaker this Monday on HANNITY & COLMES: The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal challenging restrictions in Massachusetts that ban tobacco ads within 1,000 feet of schools and playgrounds. In a 1998 settlement, tobacco companies agreed to pay about $250 billion to states and stop advertising on billboards, in malls, arenas and stadiums. And Massachusetts — well, they’ve taken it a step further, and some tobacco companies say that they’ve gone too far. And now many cities around the country are cracking down on smokers, some even suggesting that people can’t even smoke in public areas outside and in a person’s own apartment. Currently, many Los Angeles restaurants don’t even allow smoking. And the city of San Diego is expected to approve an ordinance barring smokers from lighting up outside within 1,000 feet of public playgrounds. And in Anchorage, Alaska, new ordinances ban smoking from most workplaces, restaurants, bowling alleys and sports arenas. So is it all over for you smokers?
Joining us now from Los Angeles, Patrick Reynolds. He is the president of Tobaccofree.org, and he’s also the grandson of R.J. Reynolds.
And for those that don’t know you, Patrick — you and I have debated for years — you have also dedicated your life to fighting your family on the issue of smoking.
PATRICK REYNOLDS, WWW.TOBACCOFREE.ORG: Well…
HANNITY: And the family business, I should say.
REYNOLDS: My father died from smoking, R.J. Reynolds, Jr.
HANNITY: Right.
REYNOLDS: So I dedicated — I have dedicated…
HANNITY: Right.
REYNOLDS: … my life not to fighting my family but to keeping our kids tobacco-free and helping smokers to quit.
HANNITY: Listen, I — that’s all fine and good. And you know what? I — I suggest to everybody to quit smoking. It’s not healthy. It’s not a good thing to do. I’m against drug legalization because we also have the factor of — of people in a lost state of consciousness walking the same streets. But that’s not the case with smoking. If people want to smoke, Patrick, it’s really their business.
REYNOLDS: Two things. One, it’s as addicting as heroin. And two, 90 percent of smokers, Sean, got addicted before reaching their 19th birthday. So it’s only children from 12 to 19…
HANNITY: Right.
REYNOLDS: … that are starting and getting addicted.
HANNITY: And — and the big government has been warning people since ’64 not to smoke. And it’s illegal for kids to buy cigarettes. And all these measures have been in place for an awful long period of time, Patrick, but yet people make the decision that they want to do this. Do we really want the government intruding into every single aspect of their life like this?
HANNITY: You don’t even want people to smoke outside! You don’t want restaurants to set their own policies! You don’t want people even smoking in their apartments now! Don’t you think that’s going a little too far?
REYNOLDS: I think you’re — you’re — you know, Sean, you got to open your eyes and pay attention to the sign of the times. These are reasonable laws, on the whole. Most of them are very reasonable laws that aren’t about smoking outside. We’re talking now — the Supreme Court is reviewing whether cigarette advertisements should be within 1,000 feet of schools, whether cigarette displays on countertops should be where they’re right now, at child eye level. Shouldn’t they be above child eye level, where kids can’t get to them?
You know, when I lecture to kids — and I talk to a lot of schools, high schools and middle schools, and I focus much more on that now than on politics. But the kids don’t know that every convenience store where you see a countertop display of tobacco is getting about $100 a month or so to keep that display right there. The kids don’t know that. They kids think it’s a popular, acceptable product, and that’s why the store put it on the countertop.
HASTINGS: Mr. Reynolds, let me…
REYNOLDS: They don’t know they’re getting paid.
HASTINGS: Let me ask you — this is Alcee Hastings, sitting in for Alan Colmes. Give us some of the empirical information with reference to what has transpired since there have been smoking bans in some of these cities. For example, in California, how about lung cancer. Has it been reduced in some respects, or teenage smoking generally in California?
REYNOLDS: Lung cancer in California has fallen dramatically, and we believe it’s directly correlated to the rate of smoking in California. And the states which have the most regulations on tobacco — penalties for minors, compliance checks, or sting operations, if you want to call them that, of sending kids into convenience stores to try to buy cigarettes –the states with the most regulations have the lowest teen smoking rates.
And the states with the least regulations, like South Dakota, have the highest teen smoking rates.
HASTINGS: Let me ask you just one more thing with reference to the president-elect. What do you see happening with reference to regulation in a Bush administration or him using the bully pulpit to continue the kind of efforts that folk like yourself and others have been putting forward?
REYNOLDS: Well, Governor Bush — I mean, the biggest donor to the Republican Party is Philip Morris. Ninety percent…
HANNITY: Oh, here it comes!
REYNOLDS: … of big tobacco…
HANNITY: Here it comes!
REYNOLDS: Ninety percent — Sean, I’d like to finish here. Ninety percent of big tobacco‘s…
HANNITY: No, I — it didn’t take you long to get…
REYNOLDS: … political contributions
HANNITY: … into Republican-bashing.
HASTINGS: Let him answer!
HANNITY: It didn’t take him long!
HASTINGS: Let him answer!
HANNITY: We got to take a break. But we’ll get back to Patrick in just a minute, and we’ll let him answer in full. That’s all straight — you know don’t him the way I do. He doesn’t like Republicans. You’ll see when we get back.
And also coming up next: Former congressman John Kasich will join us. What does he think of President-elect Bush’s cabinet? And also, should the president pardon Bill Clinton when Bill Clinton gets out of office?
And then Congressman Hastings and I go one on one in a battle over his controversy this weekend. That’s all straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: Welcome back to HANNITY & COLMES. I’m Sean Hannity.
Congressman Alcee Hastings. He’s in for Alan tonight. And it’s a great night to have him because he was causing all sorts of trouble and controversy over the weekend as he was challenging Florida’s electors.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, JANUARY 6, 2001)
HASTINGS: Mr. President — and I take great pride in calling you that — I must object because of the overwhelming evidence of official misconduct.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: He and I will debate that as we go one on one. That’s coming up later in the program.
We’ll also be joined by Congressman John Kasich — I guess now former Congressman John Kasich — and get his take on whether or not Bill Clinton should be pardoned and the appointments by George W. Bush.
But we continue with Patrick Reynolds talking about these new laws about smoking.
Can you explain why we should have a law on the books, why somebody who pays rent, in their own apartment, should not be allowed to smoke? Is that something you support, too?
REYNOLDS: Well, Sean, those are laws I regard as being on the fringe. You know, what the Supreme Court, again, is reviewing is whether cigarette ads should be within a thousand feet of schools and whether…
HANNITY: All right, but — I know you want to go back to that, but please…
REYNOLDS: … whether tobacco — tobacco displays should be at child eye level. But what I think —
Yeah, let’s go back to the congressman’s earlier question. What about the Bush administration and some of these Cabinet appointees? I want to talk about John Ashcroft as the attorney general, head of the Department of Justice. He’s had a very pro-tobacco record, and he is all but sure to cancel the federal government’s lawsuit against the tobacco industry, which will save the tobacco companies around $200 billion…
HANNITY: Hey, Patrick, you know, there are a lot of Democrats in those — in those Southern tobacco growing states that also have been supporting the tobacco companies, so we don’t need to go down that road.
HANNITY: Let me ask you this question. I — you want to — every time you’re on the program, we run out of time, and I don’t get a chance to ask you. You — you — your family has — you’ve inherited millions from your family that have gotten money from tobacco money. You live the life that you do because of that money. Do you think — I mean, do you not view it as blood money and wouldn’t you want to just give it all away?
REYNOLDS: You know, Sean, I use the money I inherited to…
HANNITY: All right.
REYNOLDS: … fuel my campaign at tobaccofree.org, and I’m —
Again, I want to get back on Ashcroft as — he’s going to cancel the Bush…
HANNITY: I notice you’re ducking that question.
REYNOLDS: … the federal government’s —
You know, we’re just — you’re using up time so I can’t talk about what’s going on politically, and that’s more important to me.
HANNITY: All right. Here’s Congressman…
REYNOLDS: I get along fine with my family.
HASTINGS: Let me ask you, Mr. Reynolds — one of the concerns when smoking bans began was that revenue was going to be reduced. Particularly restaurateurs and bars in California came to that view. Do you have any empirical data reflecting on that view as to whether or not any revenues have been reduced?
REYNOLDS: Absolutely. And the tobacco industry fanned the fires with panic, saying, “Oh, the restaurant revenues will be reduced.” In fact, there was an increase. In sales tax studies — and sales tax doesn’t lie — there was an increase in restaurant revenues in California and in Massachusetts where these studies were done. So the — the anti-smoking laws didn’t affect restaurant revenues.
Again now, back on Ashcroft for a second, I believe he’s going to cancel the federal…
HANNITY: He can’t help himself.
REYNOLDS: … government’s lawsuit against big tobacco. It will save the tobacco industry $200 billion. That’s 50 percent of the Medicaid damages, which — the federal government’s been paying half of Medicaid, and it’s a $200-billion special protection for big tobacco. Why? Because Philip Morris is the biggest donor for the Republican Party.
HASTINGS: What is the — what is the position that you feel is going to be taken by the anti-smoking interests or — as pertains to the Ashcroft nomination?
REYNOLDS: Please. It’s not been in the media…
HANNITY: Quickly, Patrick.
REYNOLDS: … but all of the anti-smoking forces are against Ashcroft, against Tommy Thompson. These men have a long history of pro- tobacco votes, support of the tobacco industry. It’s like putting the fox in charge of the hen house…
HANNITY: All right. They…
REYNOLDS: … to put Ashcroft as attorney general and…
HANNITY: Patrick…
REYNOLDS: … Tommy Thompson as secretary of HHS.
HANNITY: They’ve been warning people since ’64 of the dangers of smoking. My father quit after 40 years. If he could do it, anybody could. It’s a matter of people make choices. You’re blaming the wrong people.
But, anyway, it’s good to see you, Patrick.
REYNOLDS: It’s kids who have made this so-called choice, Sean. Our kids.
HANNITY: All right. Patrick, always good to see you. Thank you for your passionate debate. We’re glad you could join us.
And coming up next, former Congressman John Kasich. He’ll join us. We’ll get his thoughts on Linda Chavez, the other appointments by George W. Bush.
And also later, Congressman Alcee Hastings and I will do battle over his busy weekend protesting Florida’s electoral votes.
Straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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Document hac0000020010711dx190005z
Tobacco opponent says Idaho should do more for youth with settlement funds
381 words
26 April 2001
05:20 am
Associated Press Newswires
The Associated Press.
TWIN FALLS, Idaho (AP) – The grandson of the founder of the nation’s second-largest tobacco company is critical of the way Idaho uses its share of settlement money from cigarette manufacturers.
Patrick Reynolds, grandson of R.J. Reynolds, told an audience at the College of Southern Idaho Wednesday that the tobacco industry absolutely targets a young field of potential customers.
“I hear from a lot of teens who say, ‘Oh, Mr. Reynolds, tobacco advertising doesn’t have any effect on me,”‘ he said.
But he said their tobacco use increased 73 percent in 10 years beginning in 1988, the year R.J. Reynolds introduced the Joe Camel mascot. The company’s internal memos reveal they were aiming at customers between 14 and 24, a group dubbed “tomorrow’s cigarette business.”
“Nine out of 10 smokers in the United States become addicted before reaching their 19th birthday,” Reynolds said.
He was critical of Idaho’s use of tobacco settlement money. He said the state ranks 40th for the amount it has directed toward youth prevention out of the 46 states that received those funds.
But in March, Idaho lawmakers approved allocating nearly $2.8 million in interest earnings in the Idaho Millennium Fund trust, containing the state’s tobacco settlement payments.
Among the expenditures are for a media campaign against tobacco use, the Youth Asset Building program, youth courts in schools and money for the status offender program in the Twin Falls area.
Reynolds also was critical of the Bush administration’s seeming disinterest in continuing with a federal lawsuit against the major tobacco companies. Reynolds advocates campaign finance reform to diminish big tobacco‘s influence on politicians.
Reynolds said he was a 9-year-old the last time he saw his father, who was lying on the floor gasping for air.
“He was dying from emphysema caused by smoking,” Reynolds said.
Reynolds said he sold his stock in the company – the maker of Winstons and Camels – in 1979 because he did not want to make money off of it. Since 1986, he has been an anti-smoking advocate, lobbying for anti-smoking legislation and higher cigarette taxes.
“I believe a tobacco-free society is coming,” he said.
Rush
National/Foreign
ANTISMOKING SUIT IS LOW ON FUNDS
Wayne Washington, Globe Staff
647 words
27 April 2001
The Boston Globe
A.2
WASHINGTON – Antismoking lawmakers and activists are worried that the Justice Department is backing down from its legal fight against the tobacco industry.
In its most recent budget proposal, the Justice Department asked for $1.8 million for a lawsuit filed against the industry in September 1999. Department lawyers previously estimated that they needed $57 million this year to keep working on the case.
“The Department of Justice is proceeding with the case, and I support the department’s position,” Attorney General John Ashcroft said in testimony to Congress yesterday. “I have not made any indication about any reassignment of attorneys; I have not made a decision about the case.”
But Representative Martin Meehan, Democrat of Lowell and cochairman of the Congressional Task Force on Tobacco and Health, said the $1.8 million figure is “woefully inadequate” and “effectively heralds the end of the lawsuit.”
His views, expressed in a letter to Ashcroft released yesterday, were shared by Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, who wrote his own letter to the attorney general.
Dropping the lawsuit would be seen by political observers as a concession to big business by the Bush administration.
“This is a very sad day for all of us fighting tobacco,” said Patrick Reynolds, executive director of the Foundation for a Smokefree America and the grandson of the founder of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco. “Bush has been utterly silent on tobacco until now. Now, he’s showing his true colors.”
Meehan argues that Ashcroft did that months ago when, as a US senator from Missouri, he questioned the wisdom of the suit. In a letter to a constituent, Ashcroft wrote: “While I am deeply troubled by the increase in tobacco use by teenagers today, I do not believe that this lawsuit will help in the fight to curb teen smoking.”
He took a different stance in his confirmation hearings, however, saying that he had no “predisposition to dismiss that lawsuit.”
Rachel Tyree, spokeswoman for the American Cancer Society, said Bush’s election changed the nature of the fight against smoking. “We are definitely working with a different administration than the one eight years ago,” she said.
The $1.8 million figure is the same amount that Janet Reno had requested for 2001 and 2002. It would cover the salaries and staff costs of the litigation team in the government-supported lawsuit. Justice department lawyers were seeking as much as $57 million to pay for legal work, including gathering and analyzing millions of documents that the tobacco companies have asked to see.
Tyree said her organization remains hopeful the Justice Department will not let its lawsuit fade.
“We don’t want to point fingers,” she said. “We don’t want to overreact. Nothing’s been dropped.”
The Justice department’s budget, said Meehan, shows the administration’s true commitment. “That’s a laughable level of funding,” he said. “This suit is about making big tobacco change its ways. The suit has to proceed.”
The US government is seeking $100 billion from tobacco companies, who are accused of marketing their products to children and misrepresenting the dangers of smoking. Massachusetts was one of 46 states in 1998 that agreed to a joint settlement worth $208 billion.
Tobacco companies contributed more than $5.37 million to political campaigns in 1999 and 2000, according to a report by Common Cause, an advocacy group. Republicans received about 88 percent of those donations, the report said.
“I think the proposals coming from the administration on health care and on the environment would be dramatically different but for the millions and millions of dollars contributed to the Republican Party by those industries,” Meehan said.
THE NATION
Caption: An antismoking advertisement from yesterday’s Louisville, Ky., Courier-Journal. The ad was paid for by Florida’s “Truth Campaign.” / AP PHOTO
LOCAL
Tobacco scion gives anti-smoking lecture
NANCY SANDERSON
THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE
Hemet, CA
462 words
2 June 2001
B01
HEMET
Students at West Valley High seemed to think Patrick Reynolds’ anti-smoking talk at the school Friday, although sometimes scary with its graphic visual aids, was right on target.
“It was true, fact not fiction,” said senior Audella Dowell.
Reynolds, grandson of tobacco company founder R.J. Reynolds, told students how he watched his father, oldest brother and other relatives die from cigarette-induced illnesses.
Reynolds acknowledged that he had quit smoking 11 times and finally made it on the 12th try. He didn’t pull any punches and explained that as older smokers die from their addiction, the tobacco companies use advertising that targets young people to replace them as customers.
It might not have been the kind of message that would have warmed the heart of his grandfather, but the students liked it.
Raul Butto, a senior, said he is a nonsmoker. He said his parents quit smoking seven years ago.
For student Renee Arthur, the effects of smoking have hit home. Her grandfather is in intensive care in a San Bernardino hospital with a smoking-related illness, she said.
“I would never smoke,” Renee said. “Too many bad things can come from it.”
Reynolds, founder of The Foundation for a Smokefree America, said: “We call Joe Camel, Joe Chemo.” He showed a drawing of the smoking icon in the hospital, dying of lung disease.
His overall message was simple: Smoking isn’t cool. If you smoke, quit, and if you don’t smoke, don’t start, he said.
Reynolds said smoke-free tobacco is just as dangerous as cigarettes, and he stressed a basic theme: “You can quit.”
Reynolds became one of the first tobacco-industry figures to turn his back on the cigarette manufacturers when he spoke to Congress in favor of a ban on cigarette advertising. He has appeared all over the country, speaking out against the industry that made his family wealthy.
The Foundation for a Smokefree America is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to help bring about a smoke-free society.
As he closed his talk at the high school, Reynolds gave an inspirational message of hope for the future and urged the students to stay healthy so they can enjoy the amazing things that will come about in their lifetimes.
His appearance was the final program in the Hemet Unified School District’s campaign against smoking called TUPE, for Tobacco Use Preventive Education. As part of the program, certificates were issued to students who remained smoke-free for 30 days.
“We issued 159 certificates at West Valley,” said Valerie Velez, Health Education Program consultant for the district. “Districtwide, we’re hoping to issue 300 this year.”
PHOTO; Caption: Patrick Reynolds
FLORIDA/METRO
CAPITOL WATCH
Blowing smoke profitably
JOHN WARK
576 words
23 June 2001
Tampa Tribune
FINAL
1
A few months ago, Jim McDonough, Florida’s drug czar, spoke to a class at Florida State University about the war on drugs. There is a correlation between the use of hard drugs and marijuana and also between hard drugs and alcohol and tobacco, he said.
Legalizing marijuana is not a good idea because ease of access would increase the number of people who use such drugs as cocaine and heroin. So goes the argument.
Outlawing alcohol and tobacco, by this reasoning, would reduce hard drug use. But there is no way society is ever going to go along with that, McDonough said.
Illnesses, including emphysema, lung cancer and heart disease, are directly linked to cigarette smoking and are well-documented. An estimated four of every 10 smokers die from the addiction. Each year, an estimated 420,000 people die nationwide, 29,000 in Florida.
Big Tobacco‘s attempts to make smoking attractive to younger generations has stirred such moral outrage in the past few years that a public campaign got under way to reduce teenage smoking.
PATRICK REYNOLDS, a grandson of the tobacco company founder R.J. Reynolds, has been at the forefront of the campaign. His Web site (https://www.tobaccofree.org/children.html) says his family’s “cigarette brands, Camel and Winston, killed his father and eldest brother” and spurred him to become the “first tobacco industry figure to turn his back on the cigarette makers.”
According to the Web site, the World Health Organization predicts that “in coming decades, cigarettes will kill 500 million people … 9 percent of the present world population … almost 1 of every 10 people now alive on earth will die because of cigarettes.”
The excessive cost to taxpayers of caring for ill smokers prompted the late Gov. Lawton Chiles to work in league with a few lawmakers to craft a law that allowed the state to sue to recoup some its expenses from cigarette makers.
Florida won a settlement worth $13 billion over 25 years. Much of the money goes into the Lawton Chiles Endowment Fund and is spent on programs for children and the elderly.
About four years ago, at the same time Florida and other states were suing cigarette makers, Florida withdrew about $900 million worth of pension funds invested in tobacco stocks. It was a political and moral statement.
TEN DAYS AGO, however, Gov. Jeb Bush and two Cabinet members decided to begin reinvesting the pension fund in tobacco stocks. Had the state not stopped the tobacco investments the state would be $300 million richer.
Said the governor: “We have a fiduciary responsibility with the pension fund to put aside personal views and political perspectives and make the most prudent decision.”
The tobacco industry gave Florida Republicans $227,250 during the 1998 election and helped put Bush in the governor’s office. Philip Morris, the maker of Marlboro, was one of the largest donors to the Florida Republican Party, giving $125,000.
Republicans in the 1999 Legislature, most of whom vehemently opposed suing cigarette makers, promptly killed a proposed Clean Indoor Air Act that would have let local governments ban smoking in restaurants and other public places.
Does any of this indicate that political perspectives are being put aside?
Does it represent an acceptable balancing between public and private interests? Is it the best policy we can hope for on a legal, profitable, addictive, deadly substance?
Tobacco Control Board releases third round of ads
372 words
23 July 2001
05:09 pm
Associated Press Newswires
The Associated Press.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) – The Wisconsin Tobacco Control Board debuted its third round of anti-tobacco ads Monday, a series of television and radio spots that claim the industry has misrepresented the dangers of using tobacco.
One TV spot shows a former cigarette model who had her larynx removed. Another features Patrick Reynolds, grandson of R.J. Reynolds, who tells viewers that cigarette companies don’t print the contents of cigarettes on the packages because they don’t want smokers to know what they’re inhaling.
Bill Elliott, dean of the Marquette University communications college and member of the tobacco board, said advertisers are allowed some excess in their advertisements, often called puffery. But he said the tobacco industry’s claims that the cartoon character Joe Camel was not developed for kids are ludicrous.
“That’s not puffery. That’s a lie, and they’ve done that constantly,” he said.
Tom Ryan, a spokesman for Philip Morris USA, said the company supports efforts to prevent youth smoking and educate the public about the health effects of smoking. But it does not think some of the ads are appropriate.
He had not seen the latest Wisconsin ads.
“We have seen ads that are not truthful or accurate about our programs or policies at Philip Morris,” he said. “Those ads which denigrate the industry are inappropriate.”
The third round of ads are directed at young people, who the board says tobacco companies often target in their advertisements. The ads will run over the next few months.
The 22-member Wisconsin Tobacco Control Board distributes and manages the $5.9 billion the state is to receive over the next 25 years as part of a 1998 settlement it and 45 other states reached with the tobacco industry.
The Legislature allocated $23.5 million of that money in the current budget for an anti-tobacco initiative.
About $6.5 million of that is being spent on the ad campaign. A fourth round of ads aimed at minority communities is slated to run this fall, said David Gundersen, executive director of the Tobacco Control Board.
—
On the Net:
Wisconsin Tobacco Control Board: http://www.dhfs.state.wi.us/wtcb
Urgent
Teens take on tobacco industry with ads
DENNIS CHAPTMAN
Journal Sentinel staff
534 words
24 July 2001
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Final
02B
Teens take on tobacco industry with ads
Youths bring credibility to campaign highlighting firms’ marketing practices
By DENNIS CHAPTMAN
of the Journal Sentinel staff
Tuesday, July 24, 2001
Madison — A third round of anti-tobacco ads, aimed at preventing Wisconsin youth smoking by highlighting the marketing practices of the tobacco industry, kicked off Monday.
The state Tobacco Control Board began airing the television and radio spots as part of the youth-led FACT campaign, which stands for Fighting Against Corporate Tobacco.
“This campaign aims to educate Wisconsin residents about the real and calculated ways the tobacco industry has acted to addict our youth to tobacco products,” said board Chairwoman Earnestine Willis.
The FACT campaign was developed by youths statewide; almost 300 from 50 counties met in Madison last month as a first step toward developing local FACT chapters to spread the anti-tobacco message.
“It’s time that Wisconsin youth did something about the fact that they’ve been targeted by tobacco companies,” said Kristi Morrissey, an incoming freshman at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a board member.
Mike Domask, 17, a senior at Ozaukee High School, said he hopes the campaign will persuade youths to avoid smoking and reject marketing ploys by tobacco companies.
“Every minute, $17,000 is spent advertising and targeting us. Why? Because we are regular potential customers,” Domask said. “Once they get us hooked, they know they have us for life.”
Chelsea Tubbs, 16, a junior at Beloit Memorial High School, said it is crucial that youths be heavily involved in the campaign in order to build credibility with other teens.
“Teens listen to teens,” Tubbs said. “We will use FACT to talk to our friends about how the tobacco industry is targeting them and how they can make a difference. In our communities, we are planning activities to tell our friends the truth about tobacco.”
David Gundersen, the board’s executive director, said teens are angry about the way the tobacco industry has targeted them.
“They don’t like being referred to in tobacco industry memos as `replacement smokers’ or `the young and ignorant.’ Youth don’t like being viewed as percentages and not people,” Gundersen said.
The latest round of ads features a tobacco industry lobbyist talking about how he lied for the cigarette makers and an ex- cigarette model who speaks in a raspy voice due to the removal of her larynx.
In one of the ads, Patrick Reynolds, the grandson of cigarette magnate R.J. Reynolds, talks about how tobacco companies don’t want consumers to know what’s in cigarettes.
“My family’s name is printed on 7 billion packs of cigarettes every year,” Reynolds says. “Why am I telling you this? Because I want my family to be on the right side for a change.”
Domask said he hopes teens will heed the messages.
“I’m not going to be like the 71 people daily in Wisconsin who are starting to smoke,” Domask said. “I’m not going to be one of 21 people in Wisconsin to die today (from tobacco-related illnesses). Man, I’m going to live.”
Document mlwk000020010724dx7o0003g
LOCAL
TOBACCO CONTROL BOARD RELEASES 3RD ROUND OF ADS
Associated Press
363 words
24 July 2001
St. Paul Pioneer Press (MN)
Wisconsin
B3
St Paul Pioneer Press.
MADISON, Wis. — The Wisconsin Tobacco Control Board debuted its third round of anti-tobacco ads Monday, a series of television and radio spots that claim the industry has misrepresented the dangers of using tobacco.
One TV spot shows a former cigarette model who had her larynx removed. Another features Patrick Reynolds, grandson of R.J. Reynolds, who tells viewers that cigarette companies don’t print the contents of cigarettes on the packages because they don’t want smokers to know what they’re inhaling.
Bill Elliott, dean of the Marquette University communications college and member of the tobacco board, said advertisers are allowed some excess in their advertisements, often called puffery. But he said the tobacco industry’s claims that the cartoon character Joe Camel was not developed for kids are ludicrous.
“That’s not puffery. That’s a lie, and they’ve done that constantly,” he said.
Tom Ryan, a spokesman for Philip Morris USA, said the company supports efforts to prevent youth smoking and educate the public about the health effects of smoking. But it does not think some of the ads are appropriate.
He had not seen the latest Wisconsin ads.
“We have seen ads that are not truthful or accurate about our programs or policies at Philip Morris,” he said. “Those ads which denigrate the industry are inappropriate.”
The third round of ads are directed at young people, who the board says tobacco companies often target in their advertisements. The ads will run over the next few months.
The 22-member Wisconsin Tobacco Control Board distributes and manages the $5.9 billion the state is to receive over the next 25 years as part of a 1998 settlement it and 45 other states reached with the tobacco industry.
The Legislature allocated $23.5 million of that money in the current budget for an anti-tobacco initiative.
About $6.5 million of that is being spent on the ad campaign. A fourth round of ads aimed at minority communities is slated to run this fall, said David Gundersen, executive director of the Tobacco Control Board.
- PAUL PIONEER PRESS
LOCAL/STATE
ANTI-SMOKING ADS TARGET TEENAGERS
Matt Pommer The Capital Times
336 words
24 July 2001
The Capital Times
FIRST
4A
Young people are keys to curbing smoking by their peers, the head of the State Tobacco Control Board said Monday.
“Youth listen to other youth,” said Dr. Earnestine Willis, chairwoman of the board.
Her comments came at a morning press conference at which the board unveiled a six-week, $350,000 anti-smoking campaign aimed at young people. The ads running as part of the campaign were selected by the 300 teenagers who attended a conference here in June.
At that meeting, the teenagers chose Fighting Against Corporate Tobacco (FACT) as the name for their efforts.
One of the selected ads has a raspy-voice ex-tobacco industry model saying: “You may not get cancer. But I doubt you’ll get truth from cigarette companies. They keep saying you can’t get hooked on cigarettes even though many smokers who lose their vocal cords can’t quit.”
Another has Patrick Reynolds, grandson of R.J. Reynolds, a tobacco firm pioneer. The grandson says:
“Do you know what’s in cigarettes? No, because the last thing the tobacco companies want is for you to know how many poisonous chemicals are in their cigarettes. So they just don’t tell you.”
Another uses a message from the late Victor Crawford, who lobbied for the industry for five years.
“Tobacco companies know that 90 percent of smokers start as children … before they know better.”
Money for the Wisconsin ad campaign comes from the state’s share of the master settlement with the tobacco industry. Forty six states, including Wisconsin, had sued the industry to recover the public health costs of treating smokers.
The Tobacco Control Board was appointed by former Gov. Tommy Thompson to reduce tobacco use in Wisconsin.
The board estimates that 38 percent of high school children in Wisconsin are smokers. It also estimates in Wisconsin 18 percent of pregnant women smoke. That’s 32 percent higher than the national average, according to the board.
Tobacco Control Board allocates reduced funds
445 words
12 November 2001
05:54 pm
Associated Press Newswires
MADISON, Wis. (AP) – The Tobacco Control Board allocated $10.2 million Monday for next year’s anti-smoking efforts, almost half of what it gave out for 2001.
The board was forced to slash anti-smoking efforts after its funding was cut in the budget Gov. Scott McCallum signed in August.
“We’re just not doing as much as we could and should, which means more people are going to die of tobacco-related disease,” said David Gunderson, board executive director.
The board’s biggest cut was in its media campaign, which was reduced from $6.5 million this year to $2.5 million next year.
The campaign has featured TV spots showing a former cigarette model who had her larynx removed. Another features Patrick Reynolds, grandson of R.J. Reynolds, who tells viewers cigarette companies don’t print the contents of cigarettes on packages because they don’t want smokers to know what they’re inhaling.
The board received $20.8 million for grants for the year that ended June 30. It has $15 million for grants in each of the next two fiscal years, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau.
Rep. John Gard, R-Peshtigo and co-chairman of the Joint Finance Committee, said the state doesn’t have any extra money to give the board.
The governor has said the state could take in $300 million to $1.3 billion less than expected for the two-year period that began July 1.
“They’ve just got to wake up and realize this state’s in an economic downturn,” Gard said.
The board was created to distribute and manage the money the state was to receive as part of a 1998 settlement it and 45 other states reached with the tobacco industry.
The state will sell its tobacco payments for about $1.3 billion under the budget McCallum signed. The board will continue to receive money after the payments are sold and is slated to receive $25 million a year after the current budget.
Carrie Sullivan of the Smoke Free Wisconsin Coalition said it’s imperative the board receive the increased funding. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends Wisconsin spend at least $31 million a year on anti-smoking efforts.
“The fact of the matter is that we’re just not doing enough in our state in terms of resources. The tragedy is we know what to do and we know it will work and we just need our legislators to have the will to make it a reality,” Sullivan said.
—
On the Net:
Wisconsin Tobacco Control Board: http://www.wtcb.state.wi.us/
Urgent
Tobacco opponent says Idaho should do more for youth with settlement funds
381 words
26 April 2001
05:20 am
Associated Press Newswires
2001. The Associated Press.
TWIN FALLS, Idaho (AP) – The grandson of the founder of the nation’s second-largest tobacco company is critical of the way Idaho uses its share of settlement money from cigarette manufacturers.
Patrick Reynolds, grandson of R.J. Reynolds, told an audience at the College of Southern Idaho Wednesday that the tobacco industry absolutely targets a young field of potential customers.
“I hear from a lot of teens who say, ‘Oh, Mr. Reynolds, tobacco advertising doesn’t have any effect on me,”‘ he said.
But he said their tobacco use increased 73 percent in 10 years beginning in 1988, the year R.J. Reynolds introduced the Joe Camel mascot. The company’s internal memos reveal they were aiming at customers between 14 and 24, a group dubbed “tomorrow’s cigarette business.”
“Nine out of 10 smokers in the United States become addicted before reaching their 19th birthday,” Reynolds said.
He was critical of Idaho’s use of tobacco settlement money. He said the state ranks 40th for the amount it has directed toward youth prevention out of the 46 states that received those funds.
But in March, Idaho lawmakers approved allocating nearly $2.8 million in interest earnings in the Idaho Millennium Fund trust, containing the state’s tobacco settlement payments.
Among the expenditures are for a media campaign against tobacco use, the Youth Asset Building program, youth courts in schools and money for the status offender program in the Twin Falls area.
Reynolds also was critical of the Bush administration’s seeming disinterest in continuing with a federal lawsuit against the major tobacco companies. Reynolds advocates campaign finance reform to diminish big tobacco‘s influence on politicians.
Reynolds said he was a 9-year-old the last time he saw his father, who was lying on the floor gasping for air.
“He was dying from emphysema caused by smoking,” Reynolds said.
Reynolds said he sold his stock in the company – the maker of Winstons and Camels – in 1979 because he did not want to make money off of it. Since 1986, he has been an anti-smoking advocate, lobbying for anti-smoking legislation and higher cigarette taxes.
“I believe a tobacco-free society is coming,” he said.
Rush
Document aprs000020010710dx4q063rc
National/Foreign
ANTISMOKING SUIT IS LOW ON FUNDS
Wayne Washington, Globe Staff
647 words
27 April 2001
The Boston Globe
THIRD
A.2
WASHINGTON – Antismoking lawmakers and activists are worried that the Justice Department is backing down from its legal fight against the tobacco industry.
In its most recent budget proposal, the Justice Department asked for $1.8 million for a lawsuit filed against the industry in September 1999. Department lawyers previously estimated that they needed $57 million this year to keep working on the case.
“The Department of Justice is proceeding with the case, and I support the department’s position,” Attorney General John Ashcroft said in testimony to Congress yesterday. “I have not made any indication about any reassignment of attorneys; I have not made a decision about the case.”
But Representative Martin Meehan, Democrat of Lowell and cochairman of the Congressional Task Force on Tobacco and Health, said the $1.8 million figure is “woefully inadequate” and “effectively heralds the end of the lawsuit.”
His views, expressed in a letter to Ashcroft released yesterday, were shared by Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, who wrote his own letter to the attorney general.
Dropping the lawsuit would be seen by political observers as a concession to big business by the Bush administration.
“This is a very sad day for all of us fighting tobacco,” said Patrick Reynolds, executive director of the Foundation for a Smokefree America and the grandson of the founder of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco. “Bush has been utterly silent on tobacco until now. Now, he’s showing his true colors.”
Meehan argues that Ashcroft did that months ago when, as a US senator from Missouri, he questioned the wisdom of the suit. In a letter to a constituent, Ashcroft wrote: “While I am deeply troubled by the increase in tobacco use by teenagers today, I do not believe that this lawsuit will help in the fight to curb teen smoking.”
He took a different stance in his confirmation hearings, however, saying that he had no “predisposition to dismiss that lawsuit.”
Rachel Tyree, spokeswoman for the American Cancer Society, said Bush’s election changed the nature of the fight against smoking. “We are definitely working with a different administration than the one eight years ago,” she said.
The $1.8 million figure is the same amount that Janet Reno had requested for 2001 and 2002. It would cover the salaries and staff costs of the litigation team in the government-supported lawsuit. Justice department lawyers were seeking as much as $57 million to pay for legal work, including gathering and analyzing millions of documents that the tobacco companies have asked to see.
Tyree said her organization remains hopeful the Justice Department will not let its lawsuit fade.
“We don’t want to point fingers,” she said. “We don’t want to overreact. Nothing’s been dropped.”
The Justice department’s budget, said Meehan, shows the administration’s true commitment. “That’s a laughable level of funding,” he said. “This suit is about making big tobacco change its ways. The suit has to proceed.”
The US government is seeking $100 billion from tobacco companies, who are accused of marketing their products to children and misrepresenting the dangers of smoking. Massachusetts was one of 46 states in 1998 that agreed to a joint settlement worth $208 billion.
Tobacco companies contributed more than $5.37 million to political campaigns in 1999 and 2000, according to a report by Common Cause, an advocacy group. Republicans received about 88 percent of those donations, the report said.
“I think the proposals coming from the administration on health care and on the environment would be dramatically different but for the millions and millions of dollars contributed to the Republican Party by those industries,” Meehan said.
THE NATION
Caption: An antismoking advertisement from yesterday’s Louisville, Ky., Courier-Journal. The ad was paid for by Florida’s “Truth Campaign.” / AP PHOTO
Document bstngb0020010710dx4r00dq4
LOCAL
Tobacco scion gives anti-smoking lecture
NANCY SANDERSON
THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE
462 words
2 June 2001
The Press-Enterprise
B01
HEMET
Students at West Valley High seemed to think Patrick Reynolds’ anti-smoking talk at the school Friday, although sometimes scary with its graphic visual aids, was right on target.
“It was true, fact not fiction,” said senior Audella Dowell.
Reynolds, grandson of tobacco company founder R.J. Reynolds, told students how he watched his father, oldest brother and other relatives die from cigarette-induced illnesses.
Reynolds acknowledged that he had quit smoking 11 times and finally made it on the 12th try. He didn’t pull any punches and explained that as older smokers die from their addiction, the tobacco companies use advertising that targets young people to replace them as customers.
It might not have been the kind of message that would have warmed the heart of his grandfather, but the students liked it.
Raul Butto, a senior, said he is a nonsmoker. He said his parents quit smoking seven years ago.
For student Renee Arthur, the effects of smoking have hit home. Her grandfather is in intensive care in a San Bernardino hospital with a smoking-related illness, she said.
“I would never smoke,” Renee said. “Too many bad things can come from it.”
Reynolds, founder of The Foundation for a Smokefree America, said: “We call Joe Camel, Joe Chemo.” He showed a drawing of the smoking icon in the hospital, dying of lung disease.
His overall message was simple: Smoking isn’t cool. If you smoke, quit, and if you don’t smoke, don’t start, he said.
Reynolds said smoke-free tobacco is just as dangerous as cigarettes, and he stressed a basic theme: “You can quit.”
Reynolds became one of the first tobacco-industry figures to turn his back on the cigarette manufacturers when he spoke to Congress in favor of a ban on cigarette advertising. He has appeared all over the country, speaking out against the industry that made his family wealthy.
The Foundation for a Smokefree America is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to help bring about a smoke-free society.
As he closed his talk at the high school, Reynolds gave an inspirational message of hope for the future and urged the students to stay healthy so they can enjoy the amazing things that will come about in their lifetimes.
His appearance was the final program in the Hemet Unified School District’s campaign against smoking called TUPE, for Tobacco Use Preventive Education. As part of the program, certificates were issued to students who remained smoke-free for 30 days.
“We issued 159 certificates at West Valley,” said Valerie Velez, Health Education Program consultant for the district. “Districtwide, we’re hoping to issue 300 this year.”
PHOTO; Caption: Patrick Reynolds
Document rvsd000020010713dx62009uo
FLORIDA/METRO
CAPITOL WATCH
Blowing smoke profitably
JOHN WARK
576 words
23 June 2001
Tampa Tribune
FINAL
1
A few months ago, Jim McDonough, Florida’s drug czar, spoke to a class at Florida State University about the war on drugs. There is a correlation between the use of hard drugs and marijuana and also between hard drugs and alcohol and tobacco, he said.
Legalizing marijuana is not a good idea because ease of access would increase the number of people who use such drugs as cocaine and heroin. So goes the argument.
Outlawing alcohol and tobacco, by this reasoning, would reduce hard drug use. But there is no way society is ever going to go along with that, McDonough said.
Illnesses, including emphysema, lung cancer and heart disease, are directly linked to cigarette smoking and are well-documented. An estimated four of every 10 smokers die from the addiction. Each year, an estimated 420,000 people die nationwide, 29,000 in Florida.
Big Tobacco‘s attempts to make smoking attractive to younger generations has stirred such moral outrage in the past few years that a public campaign got under way to reduce teenage smoking.
PATRICK REYNOLDS, a grandson of the tobacco company founder R.J. Reynolds, has been at the forefront of the campaign. His Web site (https://www.tobaccofree.org/children.html) says his family’s “cigarette brands, Camel and Winston, killed his father and eldest brother” and spurred him to become the “first tobacco industry figure to turn his back on the cigarette makers.”
According to the Web site, the World Health Organization predicts that “in coming decades, cigarettes will kill 500 million people … 9 percent of the present world population … almost 1 of every 10 people now alive on earth will die because of cigarettes.”
The excessive cost to taxpayers of caring for ill smokers prompted the late Gov. Lawton Chiles to work in league with a few lawmakers to craft a law that allowed the state to sue to recoup some its expenses from cigarette makers.
Florida won a settlement worth $13 billion over 25 years. Much of the money goes into the Lawton Chiles Endowment Fund and is spent on programs for children and the elderly.
About four years ago, at the same time Florida and other states were suing cigarette makers, Florida withdrew about $900 million worth of pension funds invested in tobacco stocks. It was a political and moral statement.
TEN DAYS AGO, however, Gov. Jeb Bush and two Cabinet members decided to begin reinvesting the pension fund in tobacco stocks. Had the state not stopped the tobacco investments the state would be $300 million richer.
Said the governor: “We have a fiduciary responsibility with the pension fund to put aside personal views and political perspectives and make the most prudent decision.”
The tobacco industry gave Florida Republicans $227,250 during the 1998 election and helped put Bush in the governor’s office. Philip Morris, the maker of Marlboro, was one of the largest donors to the Florida Republican Party, giving $125,000.
Republicans in the 1999 Legislature, most of whom vehemently opposed suing cigarette makers, promptly killed a proposed Clean Indoor Air Act that would have let local governments ban smoking in restaurants and other public places.
Does any of this indicate that political perspectives are being put aside?
Does it represent an acceptable balancing between public and private interests? Is it the best policy we can hope for on a legal, profitable, addictive, deadly substance?
Tobacco Control Board releases third round of ads
372 words
23 July 2001
05:09 pm
Associated Press Newswires
MADISON, Wis. (AP) – The Wisconsin Tobacco Control Board debuted its third round of anti-tobacco ads Monday, a series of television and radio spots that claim the industry has misrepresented the dangers of using tobacco.
One TV spot shows a former cigarette model who had her larynx removed. Another features Patrick Reynolds, grandson of R.J. Reynolds, who tells viewers that cigarette companies don’t print the contents of cigarettes on the packages because they don’t want smokers to know what they’re inhaling.
Bill Elliott, dean of the Marquette University communications college and member of the tobacco board, said advertisers are allowed some excess in their advertisements, often called puffery. But he said the tobacco industry’s claims that the cartoon character Joe Camel was not developed for kids are ludicrous.
“That’s not puffery. That’s a lie, and they’ve done that constantly,” he said.
Tom Ryan, a spokesman for Philip Morris USA, said the company supports efforts to prevent youth smoking and educate the public about the health effects of smoking. But it does not think some of the ads are appropriate.
He had not seen the latest Wisconsin ads.
“We have seen ads that are not truthful or accurate about our programs or policies at Philip Morris,” he said. “Those ads which denigrate the industry are inappropriate.”
The third round of ads are directed at young people, who the board says tobacco companies often target in their advertisements. The ads will run over the next few months.
The 22-member Wisconsin Tobacco Control Board distributes and manages the $5.9 billion the state is to receive over the next 25 years as part of a 1998 settlement it and 45 other states reached with the tobacco industry.
The Legislature allocated $23.5 million of that money in the current budget for an anti-tobacco initiative.
About $6.5 million of that is being spent on the ad campaign. A fourth round of ads aimed at minority communities is slated to run this fall, said David Gundersen, executive director of the Tobacco Control Board.
—
On the Net:
Wisconsin Tobacco Control Board: http://www.dhfs.state.wi.us/wtcb
Urgent
News
Teens take on tobacco industry with ads
DENNIS CHAPTMAN
Journal Sentinel staff
534 words
24 July 2001
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Final
02B
2001 The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Except in instances where the to this article resides with the original publisher)
Teens take on tobacco industry with ads
Youths bring credibility to campaign highlighting firms’ marketing practices
By DENNIS CHAPTMAN
of the Journal Sentinel staff
Tuesday, July 24, 2001
Madison — A third round of anti-tobacco ads, aimed at preventing Wisconsin youth smoking by highlighting the marketing practices of the tobacco industry, kicked off Monday.
The state Tobacco Control Board began airing the television and radio spots as part of the youth-led FACT campaign, which stands for Fighting Against Corporate Tobacco.
“This campaign aims to educate Wisconsin residents about the real and calculated ways the tobacco industry has acted to addict our youth to tobacco products,” said board Chairwoman Earnestine Willis.
The FACT campaign was developed by youths statewide; almost 300 from 50 counties met in Madison last month as a first step toward developing local FACT chapters to spread the anti-tobacco message.
“It’s time that Wisconsin youth did something about the fact that they’ve been targeted by tobacco companies,” said Kristi Morrissey, an incoming freshman at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a board member.
Mike Domask, 17, a senior at Ozaukee High School, said he hopes the campaign will persuade youths to avoid smoking and reject marketing ploys by tobacco companies.
“Every minute, $17,000 is spent advertising and targeting us. Why? Because we are regular potential customers,” Domask said. “Once they get us hooked, they know they have us for life.”
Chelsea Tubbs, 16, a junior at Beloit Memorial High School, said it is crucial that youths be heavily involved in the campaign in order to build credibility with other teens.
“Teens listen to teens,” Tubbs said. “We will use FACT to talk to our friends about how the tobacco industry is targeting them and how they can make a difference. In our communities, we are planning activities to tell our friends the truth about tobacco.”
David Gundersen, the board’s executive director, said teens are angry about the way the tobacco industry has targeted them.
“They don’t like being referred to in tobacco industry memos as `replacement smokers’ or `the young and ignorant.’ Youth don’t like being viewed as percentages and not people,” Gundersen said.
The latest round of ads features a tobacco industry lobbyist talking about how he lied for the cigarette makers and an ex- cigarette model who speaks in a raspy voice due to the removal of her larynx.
In one of the ads, Patrick Reynolds, the grandson of cigarette magnate R.J. Reynolds, talks about how tobacco companies don’t want consumers to know what’s in cigarettes.
“My family’s name is printed on 7 billion packs of cigarettes every year,” Reynolds says. “Why am I telling you this? Because I want my family to be on the right side for a change.”
Domask said he hopes teens will heed the messages.
“I’m not going to be like the 71 people daily in Wisconsin who are starting to smoke,” Domask said. “I’m not going to be one of 21 people in Wisconsin to die today (from tobacco-related illnesses). Man, I’m going to live.”
LOCAL
TOBACCO CONTROL BOARD RELEASES 3RD ROUND OF ADS
Associated Press
363 words
24 July 2001
St. Paul Pioneer Press (MN)
Wisconsin
B3
2001, St Paul Pioneer Press.
MADISON, Wis. — The Wisconsin Tobacco Control Board debuted its third round of anti-tobacco ads Monday, a series of television and radio spots that claim the industry has misrepresented the dangers of using tobacco.
One TV spot shows a former cigarette model who had her larynx removed. Another features Patrick Reynolds, grandson of R.J. Reynolds, who tells viewers that cigarette companies don’t print the contents of cigarettes on the packages because they don’t want smokers to know what they’re inhaling.
Bill Elliott, dean of the Marquette University communications college and member of the tobacco board, said advertisers are allowed some excess in their advertisements, often called puffery. But he said the tobacco industry’s claims that the cartoon character Joe Camel was not developed for kids are ludicrous.
“That’s not puffery. That’s a lie, and they’ve done that constantly,” he said.
Tom Ryan, a spokesman for Philip Morris USA, said the company supports efforts to prevent youth smoking and educate the public about the health effects of smoking. But it does not think some of the ads are appropriate.
He had not seen the latest Wisconsin ads.
“We have seen ads that are not truthful or accurate about our programs or policies at Philip Morris,” he said. “Those ads which denigrate the industry are inappropriate.”
The third round of ads are directed at young people, who the board says tobacco companies often target in their advertisements. The ads will run over the next few months.
The 22-member Wisconsin Tobacco Control Board distributes and manages the $5.9 billion the state is to receive over the next 25 years as part of a 1998 settlement it and 45 other states reached with the tobacco industry.
The Legislature allocated $23.5 million of that money in the current budget for an anti-tobacco initiative.
About $6.5 million of that is being spent on the ad campaign. A fourth round of ads aimed at minority communities is slated to run this fall, said David Gundersen, executive director of the Tobacco Control Board.
- PAUL PIONEER PRESS
LOCAL/STATE
ANTI-SMOKING ADS TARGET TEENAGERS
Matt Pommer The Capital Times
336 words
24 July 2001
The Capital Times
FIRST
4A
( Madison Newspapers, Inc. 2001)
Young people are keys to curbing smoking by their peers, the head of the State Tobacco Control Board said Monday.
“Youth listen to other youth,” said Dr. Earnestine Willis, chairwoman of the board.
Her comments came at a morning press conference at which the board unveiled a six-week, $350,000 anti-smoking campaign aimed at young people. The ads running as part of the campaign were selected by the 300 teenagers who attended a conference here in June.
At that meeting, the teenagers chose Fighting Against Corporate Tobacco (FACT) as the name for their efforts.
One of the selected ads has a raspy-voice ex-tobacco industry model saying: “You may not get cancer. But I doubt you’ll get truth from cigarette companies. They keep saying you can’t get hooked on cigarettes even though many smokers who lose their vocal cords can’t quit.”
Another has Patrick Reynolds, grandson of R.J. Reynolds, a tobacco firm pioneer. The grandson says:
“Do you know what’s in cigarettes? No, because the last thing the tobacco companies want is for you to know how many poisonous chemicals are in their cigarettes. So they just don’t tell you.”
Another uses a message from the late Victor Crawford, who lobbied for the industry for five years.
“Tobacco companies know that 90 percent of smokers start as children … before they know better.”
Money for the Wisconsin ad campaign comes from the state’s share of the master settlement with the tobacco industry. Forty six states, including Wisconsin, had sued the industry to recover the public health costs of treating smokers.
The Tobacco Control Board was appointed by former Gov. Tommy Thompson to reduce tobacco use in Wisconsin.
The board estimates that 38 percent of high school children in Wisconsin are smokers. It also estimates in Wisconsin 18 percent of pregnant women smoke. That’s 32 percent higher than the national average, according to the board.
Tobacco Control Board allocates reduced funds
445 words
12 November 2001
05:54 pm
Associated Press Newswires
2001. The Associated Press.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) – The Tobacco Control Board allocated $10.2 million Monday for next year’s anti-smoking efforts, almost half of what it gave out for 2001.
The board was forced to slash anti-smoking efforts after its funding was cut in the budget Gov. Scott McCallum signed in August.
“We’re just not doing as much as we could and should, which means more people are going to die of tobacco-related disease,” said David Gunderson, board executive director.
The board’s biggest cut was in its media campaign, which was reduced from $6.5 million this year to $2.5 million next year.
The campaign has featured TV spots showing a former cigarette model who had her larynx removed. Another features Patrick Reynolds, grandson of R.J. Reynolds, who tells viewers cigarette companies don’t print the contents of cigarettes on packages because they don’t want smokers to know what they’re inhaling.
The board received $20.8 million for grants for the year that ended June 30. It has $15 million for grants in each of the next two fiscal years, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau.
Rep. John Gard, R-Peshtigo and co-chairman of the Joint Finance Committee, said the state doesn’t have any extra money to give the board.
The governor has said the state could take in $300 million to $1.3 billion less than expected for the two-year period that began July 1.
“They’ve just got to wake up and realize this state’s in an economic downturn,” Gard said.
The board was created to distribute and manage the money the state was to receive as part of a 1998 settlement it and 45 other states reached with the tobacco industry.
The state will sell its tobacco payments for about $1.3 billion under the budget McCallum signed. The board will continue to receive money after the payments are sold and is slated to receive $25 million a year after the current budget.
Carrie Sullivan of the Smoke Free Wisconsin Coalition said it’s imperative the board receive the increased funding. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends Wisconsin spend at least $31 million a year on anti-smoking efforts.
“The fact of the matter is that we’re just not doing enough in our state in terms of resources. The tragedy is we know what to do and we know it will work and we just need our legislators to have the will to make it a reality,” Sullivan said.
—
On the Net:
Wisconsin Tobacco Control Board: http://www.wtcb.state.wi.us/
Urgent
LOCAL & STATE NEWS
SUPERIOR, WI — REYNOLDS TO TALK ABOUT SMOKING
News Tribune
143 words
12 November 2001
Duluth News-Tribune
FINAL
02B
Turning his back on family ties, Patrick Reynolds, grandson of the founder of the prominent R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., will discuss the dangers of smoking with students at Superior’s Central Middle School Tuesday.
Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop called Reynolds “one of the nation’s most influential advocates of a smoke-free America.”
Reynolds has been an outspoken critic of tobacco advertising.
Kristy McGiffert, Central’s safe schools coordinator, welcomed news of Reynolds’ visit, citing the latest Search Institute Survey, which indicated that 12 percent of eighth-graders questioned in the district had smoked at least one cigarette in the past 30 days, and 13 percent had used smokeless tobacco.
Reynolds will appear in the school auditorium at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday.
DULUTH NEWS TRIBUNE NORTHLAND BRIEFS
Document dntr000020020129dxbc0001u
News
Tobacco board cuts ad funding by 62%
DENNIS CHAPTMAN
Journal Sentinel staff
878 words
13 November 2001
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Final
01B
2001 Journal Sentinel Inc. (Note: This notice does not apply to those news items already ed and received through wire services or other media)
Tobacco board cuts ad funding by 62%
Budgets for hotline, anti-smoking coalitions also scaled back
By DENNIS CHAPTMAN
of the Journal Sentinel staff
Tuesday, November 13, 2001
Madison — Fewer state-sponsored ads warning of the dangers of tobacco use will be hitting the airwaves after the budget-pinched Wisconsin Tobacco Control Board decided Monday to slash advertising funding by nearly 62%.
In addition, the board cut funding for community coalitions to fight tobacco use and scaled back planned funding for the state’s Quit Line, which helps smokers kick the habit.
“Given that tobacco companies spend over $100 million per year in Wisconsin marketing their products, we are fighting an uphill battle,” said David Gundersen, the board’s executive director.
Advertising, the board’s biggest ticket and highest profile function, took a 61.5% hit as board members cut the $6.5 million budget to $2.5 million for 2002.
The ad campaign has featured TV spots showing a former cigarette model who had her larynx removed. Another features Patrick Reynolds, grandson of R.J. Reynolds, who tells viewers cigarette companies don’t print the contents of cigarettes on packages because they don’t want smokers to know what they’re inhaling. The board also has aired radio commercials statewide.
“It means more people will start smoking, and more people will die from smoking-related illnesses,” Gundersen said. “It’s not ideal.”
The cuts were dictated by the budget approved by the Legislature and signed into law last August by Gov. Scott McCallum. It cut funding for the board from $21.2 million a year to about $15.3 million.
But the budget also called for the board to receive the first $25 million of investment income stemming from the proceeds of the nationwide tobacco settlement beginning in July 2003. The board was created to distribute and manage the money the state was to receive as part of a 1998 settlement it reached with the tobacco industry along with 45 other states.
“Despite the funding cuts, the board kept a comprehensive program in place,” said Gundersen, whose board parceled out a total of $10.2 million for local and statewide anti-smoking campaigns, compared with the $18.3 million awarded last year.
Gundersen said many of the board’s programs are already showing results. He said the Quit Line has received 14,000 calls from people looking for advice on how to quit smoking, and volunteer anti- smoking coalitions have been formed in each of the state’s 72 counties.
However, recent statistics also indicate that in at least one area — teen smoking — the multimillion-dollar campaign doesn’t appear to have had much of an impact.
A federal report issued last month shows that smoking rates among Wisconsin youth continue to surpass those of the nation as a whole. In addition, Wisconsin could lose $10 million in federal funding for substance abuse programs because the state failed to reduce the number of minors illegally buying tobacco products. In compliance checks, youth volunteers were able to illegally purchase cigarettes from Wisconsin merchants 34% of the time this summer, up from 25% in 2000.
The Tobacco Control Board trimmed its budget for grants to local coalitions from $5 million to $2.8 million, a 44% decline. And grants to schools for anti-smoking programs were cut from $1.25 million to $661,520.
“Without the media campaigns, it will make the work of the local coalitions harder,” Gundersen said. “And the grants for the coalitions also took a substantial cut.”
The Quit Line, which began eight months ago, was expected to cost $1.2 million for a full year, but the board trimmed its budget to $1 million.
Earnestine Willis, the board’s chairwoman, emphasized the importance of tobacco prevention programs to reducing health care costs for Wisconsin residents.
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of savings, especially in tobacco prevention,” she said.
Carrie Sullivan, executive director of SmokeFree Wisconsin, said the cuts are a setback to Wisconsin’s efforts to curb smoking. But she said the board did a good job of balancing the cuts among tobacco prevention programs.
“It’s incredibly challenging,” Sullivan said. “Part of the reason for the tobacco settlement was to counter the influence of the tobacco industry, and this makes it harder to do that job.”
But state Rep. John Gard (R-Peshtigo), co-chairman of the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee, said the state doesn’t have any extra money to give the board. McCallum has said the state could take in $300 million to $1.3 billion less than expected for the two- year period that began July 1.
“They’ve just got to wake up and realize this state’s in an economic downturn,” Gard said.
Gundersen said the state’s long-term success in fighting tobacco use will depend on the Legislature maintaining a steady source of funding.
“In tight fiscal times, we need to put dollars where they will have the biggest impact,” he said. “We expect that the Legislature recognizes this and will stand by their commitment to adequately fund tobacco prevention and cessation.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Local
TOBACCO CONTROL BOARD ALLOCATES REDUCED FUNDS
Associated Press
437 words
13 November 2001
St. Paul Pioneer Press (MN)
Wisconsin
B2
2001, St Paul Pioneer Press.
MADISON, Wis. — The Tobacco Control Board allocated $10.2 million Monday for next year’s anti-smoking efforts, almost half of what it gave out for 2001.
The board was forced to slash anti-smoking efforts after its funding was cut in the budget Gov. Scott McCallum signed in August.
“We’re just not doing as much as we could and should, which means more people are going to die of tobacco-related disease,” said David Gunderson, board executive director.
The board’s biggest cut was in its media campaign, which was reduced from $6.5 million this year to $2.5 million next year.
The campaign has featured TV spots showing a former cigarette model who had her larynx removed. Another features Patrick Reynolds, grandson of R.J. Reynolds, who tells viewers cigarette companies don’t print the contents of cigarettes on packages because they don’t want smokers to know what they’re inhaling.
The board received $20.8 million for grants for the year that ended June 30. It has $15 million for grants in each of the next two fiscal years, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau.
Rep. John Gard, R-Peshtigo and co-chairman of the Joint Finance Committee, said the state doesn’t have any extra money to give the board.
The governor has said the state could take in $300 million to $1.3 billion less than expected for the two-year period that began July 1.
“They’ve just got to wake up and realize this state’s in an economic downturn,” Gard said.
The board was created to distribute and manage the money the state was to receive as part of a 1998 settlement it and 45 other states reached with the tobacco industry.
The state will sell its tobacco payments for about $1.3 billion under the budget McCallum signed. The board will continue to receive money after the payments are sold and is slated to receive $25 million a year after the current budget.
Carrie Sullivan of the Smoke Free Wisconsin Coalition said it’s imperative the board receive the increased funding. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends Wisconsin spend at least $31 million a year on anti-smoking efforts.
“The fact of the matter is that we’re just not doing enough in our state in terms of resources. The tragedy is we know what to do and we know it will work and we just need our legislators to have the will to make it a reality,” Sullivan said.
- PAUL PIONEER PRESS
Document stpl000020011117dxbd0000b
LOCAL & STATE NEWS
REYNOLDS’ ANTI-TOBACCO SPEECH HITS HOME; GRANDSON OF CIGARETTE MOGUL ASKS SUPERIOR STUDENTS TO SNUFF OUT SMOKING;
By John Myers/News Tribune Staff Writer
632 words
14 November 2001
Duluth News-Tribune
FINAL
01C
There was a point when Patrick Reynolds stood to gain a lot when more teen-agers smoked.
But there Reynolds was Tuesday afternoon, at Superior’s Central Middle School, preaching the evils of smoking and chewing tobacco to teen-agers.
Reynolds, grandson of the founder of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., has been working since 1986 to convince people not to smoke.
Moreover, he’s been working hard to get governments to limit and even ban smoking in all public places, ban tobacco advertising and ban tobacco industry lobbying.
Reynolds told students and teachers that his grandfather died from chewing tobacco and his father from smoking cigarettes.
“That has a lot to do with why I turned my back on my family’s business,” Reynolds told the students.
Reynolds said most of the tobacco money his family made went to foundations, not to him, and that he is now far from a wealthy man. But he said his crusade, which includes national television ads, has made up for the evils that his family perpetrated.
“This is how I make sense of it,” Reynolds said, repeating his television ad line of “because I want my family to be on the right side, for a change.”
Reynolds talked for about an hour, politely reminding children that “there is bad in the world,” and that includes a tobacco industry that misleads the public and lures children to smoke. His talk was a mix of “scared straight” stories, photographs and philosophical banter.
And it appeared to hit home. When Reynolds showed photos of an 18-year-old victim of mouth and jaw cancer, many students shielded their eyes and grimaced.
“I think (Reynolds is) right about not smoking. I think it was good,” 14-year-old Sarah Moselle said. “It was pretty scary, the pictures of the boy who died from chewing snuff. But it was good to hear.”
Moselle and other student said the message wasn’t over their heads — many said they already knew of friends who smoked, and most have seen people their age smoking, drinking alcohol and even taking drugs, other evils that Reynolds preached against.
“It’s cool that he’s here. People are starting this stuff in sixth grade,” said Josie LaPorte, 13.
Reynolds said the biggest victory in the war against tobacco will be when all tobacco advertising is banned. That advertising still is being aimed at children, he said, because nine out of 10 smokers start before age 19.
Reynolds’s appearances in the Twin Ports (he also spoke Tuesday evening at the University of Wisconsin-Superior) was especially noteworthy coming just a week after Duluth voters chose to toughen an indoor smoking ban for restaurants and other establishments.
“I’m aware of what Duluth did and that’s absolutely wonderful. People want a smoking ban all over the country. It’s the wave of the future. Get used to it,” Reynolds said. “Most people now don’t smoke. People who smoke are in the outs, and the rate of teen-agers who start smoking is going down. . . . I predict that we’ll see a tobacco-free society in this century.”
Reynolds asked students to urge, but not nag, their parents to quit smoking and to urge their lawmakers to pass smoking ban laws statewide. Only when campaign contribution laws change, Reynolds said, will Congress move to ban smoking in public places.
DULUTH NEWS TRIBUNE
PHOTO: Ingrid Young/News Tribune Patrick Reynolds, grandson of the founder of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., talked to students about the dangers of smoking and chewing tobacco Tuesday at Central Middle School in Superior.
FRONT
SUPERIOR SMOKING BAN GAINS POPULARITY;
By Chris Havens and John Myers/News Tribune Staff Writers
526 words
14 November 2001
Duluth News-Tribune
FINAL
01A
It’s been a week since Duluth voters passed a citywide smoking ban and, in that time, support has perked up for a similar measure across the bay.
Petitions gauging interest in a ban on smoking in restaurants and other public establishments in Douglas County and Superior circulated Tuesday during lectures by Patrick Reynolds, a visiting anti-tobacco advocate. The grandson of the founder of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. spoke at the University of Wisconsin-Superior Tuesday night and at Superior Central Middle School during the day.
“I think there’s an interest (for a smoking ban) in Superior,” said Steve O’Neil of the American Lung Association on Tuesday night. “We’ve always said this is a Twin Ports effort. It’s always been the Twin Ports Youth and Tobacco Free Coalition, not just Duluth.”
He said the day after Duluth voters approved a smoking ban he received about five calls from Superior residents who wanted to see smoke-free restaurants in their town.
But advocating for a smoking ban in Superior is not a new thing. American Lung Association officials first met with the Superior City Council in March and have been slowly building petition numbers since then.
“There have been ongoing dialogues,” said Pat McKone, director of the Duluth American Lung Association.
Officials said it likely will be well into 2002 before any action is taken toward pushing for a smoking ordinance.
“I’m ready,” McKone said. “We want this, too.”
McKone said she thinks Superior’s youth would play a big role in an anti-smoking campaign.
If it advanced to the stage of proposing a law, it would be similar to Ashland’s smoking ban, O’Neil said. “But that’s up to the people in Superior and their elected officials.”
“I think it would be a great thing for Superior and the people of Superior,” said Ed Erickson, a Superior city councilor. He said if a smoking ban proposal came before the council he would vote in favor of it.
The petition that was being passed around Tuesday is a general one — mostly to weigh support for the issue, O’Neil said. But the effort to mount a large-scale anti-smoking campaign in Superior is “incredibly small-scale” at this point, O’Neil said, and expanding the effort to Douglas County would require much more work.
“If we feel we have a big enough base of support in any county, we’d approach it,” O’Neil said. “But that’s a big task — counties are big places.”
Greta Haber, a UWS junior, signed the petition Tuesday. She said she doesn’t think Duluth should be alone in having a smoking ban. “It should be the whole general area,” she said. “Then it would be more accepted.”
O’Neil said the Twin Ports Coalition isn’t pushing the issue on residents, stressing that the organization runs a grass-roots campaign. “If there are people in Superior who would like this to happen, we’ll help them,” O’Neil said.
DULUTH NEWS TRIBUNE
LOCAL
Philip Morris name change viewed with suspicion | Anti-tobacco forces say firm buying good will
Michael Stetz
STAFF WRITER
794 words
31 December 2001
The San Diego Union-Tribune
1,3
B-1
Think Philip Morris and, no doubt, you think cigarettes. You might even think big-time, class-action lawsuits. Or the Marlboro Man could spring to mind.
Instead, try this: Think Altria.
Quite probably, you draw a blank.
That’s the new name the longtime tobacco producer, food maker and brewer hopes to go by soon. And the concept has local and national anti-smoking forces hacking.
They claim it’s a way for the burgeoning firm to improve its image and help sell its many other products — everything from Triscuits to Jell-O to Shake ‘N Bake — without the stain of tobacco on its corporate smile.
“It will make our job tougher,” said Debra Kelley of the local office of the American Lung Association. “The name, Philip Morris, is so closely related to cigarettes. This new name, obviously, is not.”
Her organization has been fighting Philip Morris Cos. Inc. for years. The corporation is the nation’s largest cigarette maker, as well as the owner of such firms as Kraft Foods and Miller Brewing Co. Last year, it added Nabisco to its fold.
The American Lung Association found a recent Philip Morris advertising campaign touting the firm’s philanthropic efforts particularly galling. It fought to counter it.
Philip Morris gives away millions of dollars yearly, but anti- smoking forces say such largess is a smoke screen. They say the corporation is simply trying to buy good will.
Philip Morris, like other large tobacco companies, has been hit hard by damaging lawsuits and criticized for its marketing techniques, which some critics say are aimed at children and teens.
Last year, the American Lung Association of San Diego and Imperial Counties went as far as to publicly request that 25 leading San Diego- based nonprofit organizations sign a pledge promising not to seek Philip Morris money.
Philip Morris was named after the company’s founder, who opened a retail tobacco shop in London in the mid-19th century. The firm will seek shareholder permission in April for the name change.
The corporation is evolving, due to its acquisitions, said Peggy Roberts, a Philip Morris spokeswoman. “The name change will help clarify what we are,” she said.
Only the holding company’s name — currently Philip Morris Cos. Inc. — is being changed, she noted. Philip Morris USA will still be the company that produces and sells cigarettes and Kraft Foods will remain the company that’s well-known for its cheese and food products, Roberts said.
“It will be very clear, very open, what our businesses are,” she said.
The new name, Altria, comes from the Latin word altus, which signifies the company’s will to “reach higher,” according to the Philip Morris Web site. A branding company was hired to come up with the new identity.
Kelley and other anti-smoking forces worry that if the tobacco concern becomes a seemingly less dominant part of the corporation, charitable organizations may become more aggressive in seeking Philip Morris money.
And it’s no easy thing to persuade nonprofit organizations to not seek the money, particularly in these economic times.
Only nine of the 25 targeted nonprofits signed the pledge, for instance. Some of those who refused said it was simple economics: They needed the money.
Roberts noted that Philip Morris does not go out and lobby nonprofit organizations to take money. The organizations come to the corporation, asking for funds.
“They are well aware of who we are,” she said, “and they’re very happy to be our partner.”
Some anti-tobacco forces believe that the name change will have only a modest impact. That’s because tobacco companies, they say, have an image problem that a name change cannot easily repair.
“You can’t dress a wolf in sheep’s clothing and get away for it for long,” said Patrick Reynolds, president of The Foundation for a Smokefree America, which is based in Los Angeles.
Reynolds is the grandson of the founder of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., another large tobacco firm.
And his name carries clout — because of the irony. He hates smoking. He started this anti-smoking organization in 1989. Today, he gives motivational speeches at middle and high schools.
“I’m not going to change my name to Altria,” he said. “I’ll continue to use my real, honest name.”
Michael Stetz: (619) 542-4570; michael.stetz@uniontrib.com
For chart see microfilm.
1 CHART | 4 LOGOS; Caption: Marketplace giant — Phillip Morris Companies Inc., is a large corporation that sells much more than cigarettes. Her is a partial list of its products. (B-4); Credit: SOURCE: Phillip Morris Companies Inc. | UNION-TRIBUNE
Georgia Daybook
598 words
2 April 2002
12:18 am
Associated Press Newswires
Wednesday, April 3
UNDATED – Rep. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., holds campaign events for his U.S. Senate bid, 9 a.m., Embers Restaurant, 2020 First Ave., Moultrie; 11:30 a.m., Johnson Square, Bull Street, Savannah; 2:30 p.m., Hero’s Overlook, corner of Tenth and Reynolds streets, Augusta; 5 p.m., Fincher’s Bar-B-Q, 3947 Houston Ave., Macon. Contact: Lisa Gimbel, 404-915-8250.
BRUNSWICK – Four area middle schools hear from Patrick Reynolds, grandson of tobacco mogul R.J. Reynolds, about the dangers of tobacco use. A St. Simon’s dance troupe will perform at Glynn Middle School, 901 George St., and Needwood Middle School, 2560 Altamaha Blvd., with an interpretation of “I Am Your Child,” emphasizing the importance of modeling health behaviors for our children. Contact: Heather Quinn, 912-264-3907.
ATLANTA – Members of the Atlanta Beat women’s soccer team (WUSA) help students Kick Their Way to Health and protest tobacco industry’s continued marketing to kids by kicking soccer balls through a banner of tobacco ads, 1 p.m., Bunche Middle School. Contact: Harrittia Wilford of the Georgia Alliance for Tobacco Prevention, 404-444-1064 or Steven Rodriguez 404-269-7561.
The AP-Atlanta
Tobacco heir warns elementary students about tobacco use
311 words
4 April 2002
03:15 pm
Associated Press Newswires
BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) – In a somber speech to a group of Glynn County middle school students, the grandson of tobacco magnate R.J. Reynolds warned that his family’s business could kill them.
Patrick Reynolds, the son of R.J. Reynolds Jr.’s second wife, spoke to more than 1,500 students Wednesday on National Kick Butt Day.
“Cigarettes are addicting. Once you start smoking, you can’t stop,” said Reynolds, who smoked for 17 years before quitting in 1985.
As president of the Los Angeles-based Foundation for a Smokefree America, he has spoken to more than 100,000 students since he began working against smoking in 1986.
Three immediate members of his family died from emphysema, including his father, who died in 1964. Half brother Robert Joshua Reynolds and aunt Nancy Reynolds Verney also died.
Patrick Reynolds said he visited his father five times between the ages of 9 and 12, including a trip to Sapelo Island where he was bedridden.
“I found him lying there on his back, dying of emphysema, gasping for breath,” Reynolds said.
But his father never acknowledged the disease, claiming to have asthma. He also never admitted that a lifetime of smoking Camels, one of his family’s brands, caused his fatal illness.
Students were shown pictures of the effect of smoking, and Patrick Reynolds gave them instructions on how to talk family members who smoke into quitting.
“It’s effective to come from your heart,” he said.
A self-described liberal Democrat, he blames Republicans for cutting funding of anti-smoking programs. That doesn’t stop him from getting his message out, though.
“Smoking is on the way out,” he said.
Reynolds also spoke at Needwood Middle School on Wednesday, and concluded his trip with sessions at Glynn Academy and McIntosh Academy on Thursday.
Rush
National International
Tobacco dying habit, kids hear Reynolds’ grandson a smoke-free fan
Terry Dickson, Times-Union staff writer
741 words
4 April 2002
The Florida Times-Union
GEORGIA
A-1
BRUNSWICK — Patrick Reynolds told Glynn County middle school students yesterday that his family’s business could kill them. Reynolds, grandson of the late R.J. Reynolds, who founded the tobacco company that bears his name, spoke to more than 1,500 students on National Kick Butt Day, a national focus on youth-led tobacco cessation programs. Invited by the Coastal Health Unit’s Tobacco Use Prevention Program, Reynolds gave a plainspoken message on how tobacco — including cigarettes, chewing tobacco and snuff — can kill. He has personal experience in his family. Among the dead, all of emphysema, are his father, R.J. Reynolds Jr., who died in December 1964 when Patrick was 16, his half brother, Robert Joshua Reynolds III, and an aunt, Nancy Reynolds Verney. He shared some of that with students at Glynn and Needwood middle schools. Patrick Reynolds, whose mother was the second of R.J.
Reynolds Jr.’s four wives, said he visited his father five times between the ages of 9 and 12. His first visit was to Sapelo Island, which his father owned and where he found him in bed. “I found him lying there on his back, dying of emphysema, gasping for breath,” Reynolds said. His father claimed to have asthma and never acknowledged that a lifetime of smoking Camels, one of his family’s brands, was responsible for his fatal illness, Reynolds said.
“Cigarettes are addicting,” he said. “Once you start smoking, you can’t stop.” He knows something about that, too, having smoked for 17 years and succeeding in quitting in 1985 after 11 failures.
When Reynolds asked for a show of hands among students, he appeared a little stunned. A lot of hands went up when he asked if students had seen someone their own age smoking cigarettes in the past two weeks.
Reynolds gave them ways of talking to family members about smoking, including starting with a compliment and then telling them of their fear of sadness. He cautioned against nagging and said any message should be personal. “It’s effective to come from your heart,” he said. Students turned serious when he showed pictures of the effects of smoking. They groaned at one of a youngster’s gums that had receded from tobacco use and gasped when they saw photos of Sean Marsee, a young track athlete whose face and head were misshapen from surgery for cancer caused by snuff. Marsee, whose story is told often, contracted cancer at age 17 and died at 19.
As the students filed out to class, one boy stopped to tell Reynolds his grandmother died last weekend of cancer from smoking. Reynolds later said he was touched, but it’s the sort of message he has heard often in speaking to more than 100,000 students since he began working against smoking in 1986.
As president of the Los Angeles-based Foundation for a Smokefree America, he speaks mostly in the spring and fall, he said. His message for adults is somewhat different and decidedly more political than that for children. Reynolds met with health professionals yesterday at Southeast Georgia Regional Medical Center, where he said he hopes campaign finance reform holds and big corporate money, including that of tobacco companies, is taken out of politics… Reynolds spoke to nearly 800 students at Needwood Middle School yesterday afternoon, will speak to Glynn Academy freshman this morning and to McIntosh Academy’s middle and high school students this afternoon.
But yesterday afternoon, he took a boat to Sapelo Island, where he visited his dying father more than 30 years ago. “I’m going back to the house where I played as a child,” he said. But everywhere he goes he does have one common message. He tells students he believes they can stop smoking and to all he says, “Smoking is on the way out.”
Staff writer Terry Dickson can be reached at (912) 264- 0405 or via e-mail at tdickson@jacksonville.com.
Photo: ga_kickbuttday 2 040302 ga_ 1Andre J. Jackson/staff
Patrick Reynolds, grandson of tobacco company founder R.J. Reynolds, talks about the dangers of tobacco use at Needwood Middle School in Glynn County yesterday afternoon. He reclined on the stage to imitate someone ill from smoking.
LOCAL
GEORGIA BRIEFS
From wire reports
400 words
5 April 2002
Columbus Ledger-Enquirer (GA)
LEDGER-ENQUIRER
C7
BRUNSWICK
Reynolds’ grandson speaks against smokes
In a somber speech to a group of Glynn County middle school students, the grandson of tobacco magnate R.J. Reynolds warned his family’s business could kill them.
Patrick Reynolds spoke to more than 1,500 students Wednesday on National Kick Butt Day.
”Cigarettes are addicting. Once you start smoking, you can’t stop,” said Reynolds, who smoked for 17 years before quitting in 1985.
As president of the Foundation for a Smokefree America, he has spoken to more than 100,000 students since he began working against smoking in 1986.
METRO
TOBACCO HEIR WARNS PUPILS ABOUT SMOKING
350 words
5 April 2002
The Augusta Chronicle
ALL
B03
In a somber speech to a group of Glynn County middle school pupils, the grandson of tobacco magnate R.J. Reynolds warned that his family’s business could kill them.
Patrick Reynolds, the son of R.J. Reynolds Jr.’s second wife, spoke to more than 1,500 pupils Wednesday, National Kick Butt Day.
“Cigarettes are addicting. Once you start smoking, you can’t stop,” said Mr. Reynolds, who smoked for 17 years before quitting in 1985.
Three immediate members of his family died from emphysema, including his father, who died in 1964. Half brother Robert Joshua Reynolds and aunt Nancy Reynolds Verney also died.
People in the news: Patrick Reynolds
41 words
24 April 2002
News for You
2
Volume 50, Issue 16; ISSN: 0884-3910
Patrick Reynolds is the grandson of R. J. Reynolds, who started the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. While Patrick’s family got rich selling cigarettes, he travels the country telling students to never start smoking.
Document infy000020020507dy4o0000j
Monday, May 6
413 words
5 May 2002
09:57 pm
Associated Press Newswires
8:30 a.m., SOUTH GATE – A discovery compliance hearing is scheduled for South Gate City Treasurer Albert Robles, who is accused of making criminal threats against two state legislators, a police officer and a fourth person. South Gate Courtroom, Div. 3, 8640 California Ave. Contact: (323) 563-4006.
9 a.m., LAWNDALE – Anti-tobacco advocate Patrick Reynolds, grandson of tobacco company founder R.J. Reynolds, speaks to high school students about staying tobacco-free and drug-free. Lawndale High School, school library, 14901 S. Inglewood Ave. Contact: Glendene Wolf or Hatha Parrish, (310) 471-0303, (310) 263-3172.
Tuesday, May 07
453 words
7 May 2002
02:11 am
Associated Press Newswires
10 a.m., HAWTHORNE – Anti-tobacco advocate Patrick Reynolds, grandson of tobacco company founder R. J. Reynolds, will speak to high school students on “The Truth About Tobacco,” aiming to inspire them to stay free of tobacco and drugs. Hawthorne High School, school auditorium, 4859 W. El Segundo Blvd. Contact: Glendene Wolf, Tobaccofree.Org, (310) 471-0303; Patrick Reynolds, cell (310) 880-1111; Hatha Parrish, (310) 263-3172.
R.J. Reynolds Heir, Tobaccofree Advocate, to Speak At Hawthorne High School, Tuesday, May 7 at 10am and 11am
669 words
7 May 2002
10:00 am
PR Newswire
( 2002, PR Newswire)
Since Sept 11th, Teen Smoking, Drug Use Up in NYC
According to American Lung Association, New York City(1)
Unique Part of Motivational Speaker’s Talk Aims to Inspire Teens to Have MoreFaith in the Future, to Give Them a New Reason to Stay Tobaccofree and Drugfree WHO: Patrick Reynolds, a grandson of tobacco company founder R.J. Reynolds and Los Angeles resident, was the first tobacco industry figure to speak out publicly against the industry, after his father, R.J. Reynolds, Jr., died in 1964 from emphysema, caused by smoking his family’s brands. A frequent speaker at schools nationally, Reynolds founded Tobaccofree.org in 1989. (Bio: www.tobaccofree.org/bio.htm ) WHEN: May 7, 2002, two motivational talks, at 10am and 11am WHERE: Hawthorne High School, 4859 West El Segundo Boulevard, Hawthorne, CA 90250. (From the 405 take the El Segundo exit, and go East. Hawthorne High’s parking lot will be on the North side of El Segundo Boulevard, before you reach Inglewood Avenue.) WHAT: Since September 11th, there has been an increase of teen worry, as well as an increase in teen smoking, drug use and binge drinking recorded in New York City(1). Tuesday morning, when Mr. Reynolds speaks at Hawthorne High, he’ll ask the teen audience, “How many of you are worried about the future?” In other States, he has recently seen a substantial percentage of students’ hands go up. “Especially since September 11th,” says Reynolds, “today’s teens today are more worried, and many may be thinking, ‘I have no future — so why not smoke, drink or use drugs?’ It’s important to do what we can to restore their hope for the future. I believe it will motivate some of them to stay healthy.” Tuesday morning, Reynolds will deliver an inspiring message of hope, aimed at helping restore the teens’ faith in the future. At the close of his talk, he also revives the ancient practice of initiation, and initiates the teens into life. Video clips of these sections of his talk are posted on the web; see the links below. An educational video of Reynolds’ live talk, titled The Truth About Tobacco, has been purchased by 3,000 schools and health departments. The video is intended for 7th – 12th graders, and contains the unique section inspiring increased faith in the future. Reynolds is President of Tobaccofree.Org and the Foundation for a Smokefree America. He is also a motivational speaker, at high schools, middle schools and colleges nationally. He most recently appeared on Fox News Channel on Saturday, May 4, 2002, 10:30pm EDT, in a debate against the Cato Institute, concerning the NYC Condo Board which recently required all new tenants to be nonsmokers, due to complaints about second hand smoke in the building’s ventilation system from existing tenants. LINKS:
Video clips from his talk for youth and educational video are posted at: www.tobaccofree.org/clips.htm See especially Clip 5 (Faith in the Future), and Clip 6 (Initiation).
For more background on increased teen worry about the future, please see www.tobaccofree.org/vid-release.htm.
For brief summary of the topics to be covered on May 7th, see www.tobaccofree.org/patrick.htm
The full text of his live talk is posted at www.tobaccofree.org/children.htm
Mr. Reynolds’ current bio is posted at www.tobaccofree.org/bio.htm
For further information please contact: Patrick Reynolds, President, Tobaccofree.org and The Foundation for a Smokefree America, cell, +1-310-880-1111, or Glendene Wolf, Office Manager, Tobaccofree.org, +1-310-471-0303; or Mary Little, Associate Principal of Hawthorne High School, +1-310-263-4405. (1) This may be verified by Elizabeth Lancet, American Lung Association, Statistics Office, New York City, tel (212)315-8826. MAKE YOUR OPINION COUNT – Click Here http://tbutton.prnewswire.com/prn/11690X32539228 10:00 EDT
Former tobacco exec to talk at area schools
258 words
10 September 2002
Bangor Daily News Bangor, ME
All
4
ORONO — Grandson of tobacco company founder R.J. Reynolds, former tobacco executive Patrick Reynolds will share his life experiences fighting the tobacco industry during several talks in the Greater Bangor area.
Reynolds will present his anti-smoking message at:
. 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 17, at 100 Donald P. Corbett Business Building, University of Maine, Orono.
. 1 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 18, in Bangor at Eastern Maine Technical College’s Rangeley Hall, Room 501A. Rangeley Hall is located on Sylvan Road.
Reynolds also will speak to all SAD 22 middle school students at Hampden Academy at 10 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 18.
A former smoker, Reynolds was the first industry figure to turn his back on the industry when he left his family’s business in 1986.
It was the family brands, Camel and Winston, that killed his father and eldest brother, he says.
In his lectures around the country, Reynolds discusses the First Amendment debate over tobacco advertising and explains his support for campaign finance reform to help curb the power of the tobacco industry over the government.
Co-sponsors for the events include Bangor Region Partners for Health, a program of Partnerships for Healthy Communities; the University of Maine’s Substance Abuse Prevention Services; University of Maine Counseling Center; Eastern Maine Technical College; and several private donors. Funding for Bangor Region Partners for Health is provided by Healthy Maine Partnerships, Bureau of Health, Department of Human Services. For information, visit the Web site at www.tobaccofree.org.
R.J. Reynolds’ grandson to speak against smoking
MICHAEL O’D. MOORE; OF THE NEWS STAFF
357 words
16 September 2002
Bangor Daily News Bangor, ME
All
ORONO – Patrick Reynolds knows two things about tobacco: It made his family rich, and it took the lives of his father, brother and aunt.
The man whose grandfather, R.J. Reynolds, founded the company that makes Camel and Winston cigarettes is bringing his campaign against smoking to the Bangor area this week. He will speak at two lectures open to the public: at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Donald P. Corbett Business Building at the University of Maine in Orono, and at 1 p.m. Wednesday at Rangeley Hall at Eastern Maine Technical College in Bangor.
Eastern Maine Technical College – sponsor of Reynolds’ visit along with Bangor Region Partners for Health and several private donors – has survey data showing that one-third of its student body smokes three times a week or more, said Cathy Marquez, EMTC substance abuse counselor. Marquez notes the rate is just 24 percent of all students in a group of similar colleges.
EMTC has instituted a no-smoking policy in its buildings. Smoking is only allowed in designated areas on campus.
On Friday, officials from EMTC, BRPH and SAD 22 in Hampden visited the Bangor Daily News to talk about the upcoming lectures and about trends in student smoking.
Last year, Hampden students made up one of four groups making an advertisement for the Bureau of Health’s “Tobacco Sucks” campaign. According to School Health Coordinator John Plourde and Superintendent Richard Lyons, 5.7 percent of middle school students in SAD 22 smoke, compared to 11.7 percent of students statewide. But by high school, 30.2 percent of Hampden’s students are smoking, compared to 28.6 percent statewide.
Hampden is working on a wide range of smoking cessation efforts, including a program aimed at fourth-graders developed in cooperation with Eastern Maine Medical Center’s Family Group Practice; youth advocacy groups within Hampden Academy; and health education classes in kindergarten through grade 12.
For more information on the lectures, contact Janet Spencer, program director, Bangor Region Partners for Health at 990-0467.
News
Smoker awarded billions // Courts – Dying Newport woman’s jury award largest for an individual in tobacco history. Series: smoker.1005
GREG HARDESTY, BILL RAMS and ALDRIN BROWN
The Orange County Register
969 words
5 October 2002
The Orange County Register
1
Cover
(, The Orange County Register – 2002)
A Newport Beach woman dying of cancer was awarded a historic $28 billion in punitive damages Friday by a Los Angeles jury that decided tobacco giant Philip Morris Inc. concealed the dangers of cigarettes.
The award to Betty Bullock, a 64-year-old former nurse’s aide who has only a few months to live, shattered last year’s $3 billion jury verdict against Philip Morris — also in Los Angeles — which a judge reduced to $100 million.
Attorney Michael Piuze won both verdicts, the latest believed to be the nation’s largest punitive-damages award to an individual in a tobacco-liability lawsuit.
“The sad part is that she’ll never see a dime of this,” said her son-in-law, who is not being identified for privacy reasons. “We’re happy for the good result, but it’s sad that it came down to this — her having a disease that will take her life.”
In a biting reference to the alleged evils he says have been perpetuated on the public by tobacco companies over the past five decades, Piuze asked the jury to award Bullock $6,666,666,666 — numbers associated with Satan.
Philip Morris said it will appeal the verdict, which followed last week’s award to Bullock of $850,000 in compensatory damages.
“This jury should have focused on what the plaintiff knew about the health risks of smoking and whether anything the company ever said or did improperly influenced her decision to smoke or not to quit,” said William S. Ohlemeyer, vice president and associate general counsel at Philip Morris.
“Instead, it appears that this decision speaks to more general policy issues regarding smoking that can’t fairly be decided in lawsuits like this,” Ohlemeyer said.
The verdict came after a nine-week trial in which the gravely ill Bullock appeared on video, describing how she started smoking at 17 – – primarily the Benson & Hedges brand.
Bullock’s lung cancer, diagnosed in early 2001, has spread to her liver. She has a daughter and a granddaughter.
Formerly an avid golfer, Bullock will lose 20 percent of her life because of cigarette smoking, according to Piuze. “She gave up some of her valuable remaining time on Earth to get even (with Philip Morris),” the lawyer said in his closing argument Wednesday.
Hours after the verdict, Bullock was resting at her son-in-law’s home. Asked what she intends to do with the money — should she ever get it — her son-in-law said:
“Betty intends on helping charitable organizations and informing the public to prevent others from smoking. She also really wants to help people, like the people she sees at the cancer center who don’t have insurance. “
At a news conference outside his West Los Angeles office Friday afternoon, Piuze had harsh words for Philip Morris and the rest of the tobacco industry.
He criticized the company for arguing that Bullock should have known smoking was hazardous even though its own chief executive asserted ignorance about the dangers of cigarettes in sworn testimony before Congress.
“Today, Philip Morris again got what it deserved,” Piuze told reporters.
In her lawsuit, Bullock alleged that Philip Morris knowingly concealed the harmful effects of nicotine and manipulated levels of the substance to keep smokers addicted. The lawsuit alleged fraud, negligence and product liability.
The trial was closely watched by legal experts because it was the first in California to test a recent state Supreme Court ruling that granted tobacco companies a window of immunity.
The court ruled that smokers who sue tobacco companies can’t rely on any evidence of deception by the industry between 1988 and 1998. During that period, a law protected the tobacco companies from most lawsuits on the ground that the hazards of smoking were common knowledge by then.
Though the law was repealed in 1998, the state Supreme Court ruled that plaintiffs could not rely on any evidence from that decade.
Every day in California, about 100 people die from tobacco– related illnesses, and there are about 65 pending tobacco lawsuits in the state, according to testimony in the Bullock trial, before Judge Warren L. Ettinger.
Philip Morris, which commands about 51 percent of the U.S. tobacco market, earns a profit of about $100 million per week, Piuze told jurors.
“I do think smokers should be accountable, but does that mean we should let the tobacco industry go unaccountable for its share in the problem?” said Patrick Reynolds, grandson of tobacco company founder RJ Reynolds and anti-smoking advocate.
Born in South Dakota, Bullock moved to Southern California in 1957 and spent a portion of her adult life caring for her father, who died in 1984.
She later got a job as a nurse’s aide at UCI Medical Center and took care of her sickly older sister even after being diagnosed with lung cancer.
She used the patch and nicotine gum — even hypnosis, her son-in- law said, but failed with all over the years. Now she spends most days receiving chemotherapy.
“But she never complains,” her son-in-law said. “She just wants to help other people.”
When a nephew died, Bullock took his children clothing and a computer and helped his widow care for them. And she’s remained tough since her bronchitis evolved into lung cancer.
“I give her a tremendous amount of credit,” her son-in-law said. “The tobacco company has millions, but they couldn’t beat up a little nurse’s aide from South Dakota.”
Contact Hardesty at (714) 834-3773 or ghardesty@ocregister.com
Betty Bullock
News 4
Smoking Ban Did Not Come From This Governor or This Legislature
962 words
29 October 2002
10:30 am
PR Newswire
TobaccoFree Advocate RJ Reynolds’ Grandson Tours Florida To Advocate Amendment 6 Press Events in Four Florida cities, October 30 – November 1, In Support of Amendment 6 Tour Kickoff: Wednesday, 11am, October 30, Miami
MIAMI, Oct. 29 /PRNewswire/ — “Amendment 6 did not come from the present Governor, or the present legislature in Tallahassee. It only got on the ballot because of a citizen-led petition, backed by the American Cancer Society and other groups. Would Governor Bush or the Republican legislature have passed a Statewide smoking ban? They have ignored past proposals, and even cut back Florida’s successful tobacco education program. The fact is, the biggest donor to the Republican Party in this election is Phillip Morris, and they’re too smart to give millions of dollars away for no reason. If Amendment 6 loses, Big Tobacco wins.”
WHO: Patrick Reynolds, an opponent of the tobacco industry and a grandson of tobacco company founder RJ Reynolds. An advocate for regulating Big Tobacco since 1986, and for campaign finance reform, Mr. Reynolds is now considering running for office as a Democrat from Florida, where he grew up. On October 29, he campaigned in four Michigan cities, championing Proposal 4, which would set aside a portion of Michigan’s tobacco settlement funds for health, including tobacco education. Michigan has set no settlement funds aside for this previously.
Reynolds began his campaign after his father, R.J. Reynolds, Jr., died in 1964 from emphysema, caused by smoking the family’s brands. His eldest brother, R.J. Reynolds III, also died from emphysema caused by smoking, in 1994. He was born in Miami Beach, and lived there until college, when he moved to Los Angeles. Mr. Reynolds is President of Tobaccofree.org , and is a frequent speaker at colleges, high schools, and middle schools. Full bio: https://www.tobaccofree.org/bio.htm
WHAT: Four city tour of Florida, to advocate Amendment 6 as a private citizen. Immediately following the kickoff press event, Mr. Reynolds will give a lecture at Miami Dade Community College. At the 11am event, his remarks will include the quotes below, in addition to the one at top. To assist in fact checking, contacts, links to reports and news articles, are listed below.
MORE OF PATRICK REYNOLDS‘ REMARKS
“Banning smoking 100% from most workplaces is an idea whose time has come. 1522 US cities now have laws regulating tobacco. That number would be much higher, except for the fact that many State legislatures, lobbied heavily by the tobacco industry, have passed watered-down Statewide smoking laws. Many of these contain a clause preempting cities from passing their own 100% bans at the local level. Florida was the first State to pass pre-emption, in 1985-86. One of the most important battles before us now is to repeal preemption in the legislatures which have passed it — and definitely, to place more citizens’ initiatives on the ballot in other States, which also have unresponsive elected officials. Gasp of Florida and others have tried to get such a law passed for years, without success.”
“California passed the first 100% Statewide smoking ban in 1994. It bans smoking 100% from restaurants, and starting in 1998, from free-standing bars and nightclubs as well. Initially California’s smoking ban was controversial, but today it’s widely accepted, and is in fact one of the most popular laws in the State.
“In June, Delaware’s legislature also passed a 100% Statewide smoking ban, which will go into effect November 27th. Florida would become the third State to have a 100% Statewide smoking ban.
Additional sources for fact checking:
Tobacco Industry Political Power and Influence in Florida From 1979 to 1999 – Executive Summary
http://www.library.ucsf.edu/tobacco/fl/execsumm.html
Philip Morris is the leading campaign contributor to Republicans in federal elections during the 2001-02 election cycle, giving $2,666,163 (as of October 2), according to a new report by the Center for Responsive Politics. Philip Morris also gave $537,638 to Democrats during the 2001-02 cycle. http://www.opensecrets.org/pubs/toporgs/appendix.asp(See No. 5 on this page.)
Links to additional sources and live contacts for fact checking are postedathttps://www.tobaccofree.org/tour.htmPATRICK REYNOLDS‘ TOUR SCHEDULE October 29th — Campaigning all day in Michigan, for Proposal 4 Contact in Michigan: Roger Martin (517)487-9320. WHERE AND WHEN: October 30, 2002 South Miami 11am — Florida tour kickoff Press event in front of College Park Inn Restaurant (bar allows smoking) 10575 SW 109th Court, South Miami FL 33176, Tel (305)595-6518 12pm Lecture, across street at Miami Dade Community College, Kendall Campus McCarthy Theatre, Room 6120Contacts and more links to articles for fact checking, plus a detailed tourschedule are posted athttp://www.Tobaccofree.org/tour.htm October 31st, 2002 Orlando 9:00am Press Event Outside, on the plaza of City Hall 400 South Orange Ave, Orlando FL 32801 Contact: Ridge, City Clerks Off 407-246-2251 Tallahassee 2pm Press Event Near City Hall, located at 300 South Adams, Tallahassee FL 32301 Press event will be in front of City Hall, at the corner of Adams and Jefferson (across from Andrew’s Restaurant) Michelle Bono (850)891-8533 Depart Tallahassee 4:43pm Airtran 1259, Arr Tampa 5:35pm November 1, Friday Tampa 10am Press Event Tahitian Inn Coffee Shop, located at 601 Dale Mabry Avenue, Tampa, 33609. They will be 100% smokefree; management is sympathetic to Amendment 6. Make Your Opinion Count – Click Here http://tbutton.prnewswire.com/prn/11690X46247228
/CONTACT: Patrick Reynolds, President of Tobaccofree.org, cell, +1-310-880-1111/ 10:30 EST
Citizens for a Healthy Michigan: Grandson of Tobacco Company Founder RJ Reynolds Urges Michigan to Vote ‘YES’ on Proposal 4
481 words
29 October 2002
12:11 pm
PR Newswire
Patrick Reynolds Says Big Tobacco Wants Proposal 4 to Fail
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich., Oct. 29 /PRNewswire/ — Patrick Reynolds, grandson of tobacco company founder RJ Reynolds, is calling on Michigan voters to save thousands of lives and defeat Big Tobacco by passing Proposal 4/the Healthy Michigan Amendment on the Nov. 5 ballot.
“I’m here today because I don’t want Big Tobacco to kill Proposal 4 like it has killed so many people in Michigan and in our nation,” Reynolds said. At stops in Midland, Mt. Pleasant and Traverse City, Reynolds urged Michigan voters to vote YES on Proposal 4 and fight back against the tobacco companies who continue to bombard Michigan citizens with $190 million in cigarette advertising each year.
“This year alone, tobacco will kill 15,000 Michigan citizens,” Reynolds said. “That’s almost 48 people every day — two every hour — dead from tobacco.”
Reynolds is no stranger to the fight against Big Tobacco. He was the first tobacco industry figure to turn his back on the cigarette companies. Reynolds saw his father, oldest brother, and other relatives die from cigarette-induced emphysema and lung cancer. Concerned about the mounting health evidence, he made the decision to go against the industry his family helped build. Reynolds first spoke out publicly in 1986 at a Congressional hearing in favor of a ban on all cigarette advertising. Since 1999 he has repeatedly called for state legislators to more adequately fund tobacco education and prevention programs — which Proposal 4 does, by dedicating the tobacco settlement to help people who smoke quit, and to help kids never start.
“Michigan received its first tobacco settlement payment in 1999. Since then, smoking has killed 56,000 Michigan citizens — more than alcohol, AIDS, car crashes, illegal drugs, murders and suicides combined,” Reynolds said. “I will not sit idly by and let Big Tobacco continue that tragic legacy and declare open season on yet another generation of smokers in mid-Michigan.
“Passing Proposal 4 is all about saving Michigan lives,” Reynolds said. “It’s about saving Michigan children from the slow, painful death that starts with their first drag on a cigarette. If Proposal 4 fails, the only winner is Big Tobacco. To help Michigan children avoid the temptations of tobacco — and to save thousands of Michigan lives — Michigan voters must pass the Healthy Michigan Amendment on November 5. Vote yes on Proposal 4.”
Make Your Opinion Count – Click Here
http://tbutton.prnewswire.com/prn/11690X55032411
/CONTACT: Lori Latham of Citizens for a Healthy Michigan, +1-800-235-1910, lorilatham@tobaccomoney.org ; or Roger Martin of Rossman Martin & Associates, +1-517-487-9320, cell: +1-517-749-0587, rmartin@rossmanmartin.com , for Citizens for a Healthy Michigan/ 12:11 EST
Florida Daybook for Wednesday, October 30, 2002
955 words
29 October 2002
08:06 pm
Associated Press Newswires
SOUTH MIAMI – 11 a.m., Patrick Reynolds, grandson of tobacco company founder R.J. Reynolds and an opponent of the tobacco industry, kicks off tour of Florida. College Park Inn Restaurant, 10575 SW 109th Court. Contact: 305-595-6518.
The AP, Miami
Smoking Ban Not From This Governor or This Legislature, Says RJ Reynolds’ Grandson
536 words
30 October 2002
04:53 pm
PR Newswire
Tobaccofree Advocate Tours Florida to Advocate 100% Statewide Smoking Ban
ORLANDO, Fla., Oct. 30 /PRNewswire/ — “Amendment 6 did not come from the present Governor, or the present legislature in Tallahassee. It only got on the ballot because of a citizen-led petition, backed by the American Cancer Society and other groups. Would Governor Bush or the Republican legislature have passed a Statewide smoking ban? They have ignored past proposals to do so, and even cut back Florida’s successful tobacco education program. The truth is, the biggest donor to the Republican Party in this election is Phillip Morris, and they’re too smart to give millions of dollars away for no reason,” says Mr. Reynolds.
WHO: Patrick Reynolds, an opponent of the tobacco industry and a grandson of tobacco company founder RJ Reynolds. An advocate for regulating Big Tobacco since 1986, and for campaign finance reform, Mr. Reynolds is now considering running for office as a Democrat from Florida, where he grew up. On October 29, he campaigned in four Michigan cities, championing Proposal 4, which would set aside a portion of Michigan’s tobacco settlement funds for health, including tobacco education. Michigan has set no settlement funds aside for this previously.
Reynolds began his campaign after his father, R.J. Reynolds, Jr., died in 1964 from emphysema, caused by smoking the family’s brands. His eldest brother, R.J. Reynolds III, also died from emphysema caused by smoking, in 1994. He was born in Miami Beach, and lived there until college, when he moved to Los Angeles. Mr. Reynolds is President of Tobaccofree.org , and is a frequent speaker at colleges, high schools, and middle schools. Full bio: https://www.tobaccofree.org/bio.htm.
WHAT: Four city tour of Florida, to advocate Amendment 6 as a private citizen. Immediately following the kickoff press event, Mr. Reynolds will give a lecture at Miami Dade Community College. At the 11 a.m. event, his remarks will include the quotes below, in addition to the one at top. To assist in fact checking, contacts, links to reports and news articles, are listed below.
THE COMPLETE PRESS RELEASE, PLUS CONTACTS AND RESEARCH FOR FACT CHECKING,ARE POSTED ATwww.tobaccofree.org/tour.htm. WHERE AND WHEN — PRESS EVENT LOCATIONS October 31st Orlando 9:00 a.m. Press Event Outside, on the plaza of City Hall 400 South Orange Ave, Orlando FL 32801 Contact: Ridge, City Clerks Off +1-407-246-2251 Dep Orlando 11:40 a.m. Delta Com Air flight 5073 Arr Tallahassee 12:40 p.m. Tallahassee 2 p.m. Press Event Near City Hall, located at 300 South Adams, Tallahassee FL 32301 Press event will be in front of City Hall, at the corner of Adams and Jefferson (across from Andrew’s Restaurant) November 1 Tampa 10 a.m. Press Event Tahitian Inn Coffee Shop, located at 601 Dale Mabry Avenue, Tampa, 33609. They will be 100% smokefree; management is sympathetic to Amendment 6 Make Your Opinion Count – Click Here http://tbutton.prnewswire.com/prn/11690X76625632
/CONTACT: Patrick Reynolds, President of Tobaccofree.Org, cell, +1-310-880-1111/ 16:53 EST
TAMPA & STATE; CITY & STATE; METRO & STATE
Past propels smoking foes
DAVID KARP
911 words
2 November 2002
St. Petersburg Times
LATE TAMPA
1B; 3B; 1B
TAMPA — Behind the counter at the Tahitian Inn, a black and white framed photograph of the late Joe Pupello hangs on the wall.
Pupello used to sit every morning with friends in the motel diner, filling the room with smoke. Puffing two packs of Lucky Strikes daily was part of the rhythm of his life.
The man who founded the family-owned inn on S Dale Mabry Highway in 1953 was not there Friday to see his son’s latest cause.
There in the Tahitian Inn, Joe C. Pupello hosted a news conference for Patrick Reynolds, an antismoking advocate who wants Floridians to ban smoking from restaurants and other establishments.
“You have a right to smoke,” Reynolds said before a bank of television cameras, “but not if I am in the room.”
Floridians will vote Tuesday on Amendment 6, which would change the state Constitution to prohibit smoking at indoor workplaces, except for stand-alone bars, smoking hotel rooms and private homes.
Reporters came to hear Reynolds, grandson of tobacco king R.J. Reynolds, urge voters to pass the amendment.
In a blue suit, red tie and black wing tip shoes, Reynolds offered public health reasons to pass the measure. He talked about the effects of secondhand smoke. He attacked Gov. Jeb Bush and the Republican Party for accepting millions from tobacco companies.
But the reasons for passing the antismoking measure were more personal for Reynolds and Pupello, two sons who both lost their fathers.
+++
Reynolds was born into a family whose name is synonymous with cigarettes. His grandfather, R.J. Reynolds, started his company in Winston, N.C., in 1875. Today it’s the second-largest tobacco company in the United States.
Reynolds had four children, including his oldest son R.J. Reynolds Jr., who smoked regularly, something considered fashionable at the time.
Reynolds Jr. was a playboy, according to his son Patrick. He married four times, flew airplanes and dabbled in politics. He was also fabulously wealthy, inheriting millions after his father’s death.
But Patrick Reynolds hardly knew his father, who seemed larger than life. His father and mother divorced when he was a child. When he was 9, he wrote his father, “Dear Dad, I want to meet you,” he said.
He later met with his father at a mountain retreat in North Carolina. His father, who had smoked all his life, was seriously ill. He lay in bed with sandbags on his chest, a common treatment for asthma. He actually had emphysema, Patrick Reynolds said.
He would see his father a few times after that, usually around holidays. His father died a few years later. But he largely cut his children out of the inheritance, said Patrick Reynolds. He got $2.5-million, a small portion of his father’s massive fortune.
The money allowed Patrick Reynolds, then just 21, to lead a glamorous life. He went to Berkeley, Calif., smoked pot and studied filmmaking, he said. He bought a mansion in the Hollywood hills. He dated Shelley Duvall, who starred in The Shining.
In 1985, he was still drifting, going through a divorce, filming a movie that would tank and grieving about the death of his mother. He was also seeing a therapist to help with his anger toward his absentee father.
In the middle of all of this, a wealthy Republican invited him to Washington to meet some senators. One asked him about his position on federal taxes on tobacco.
Reynolds, who hadn’t thought much about the tobacco debate, said the cigarette tax should be raised. The senator, who recognized the publicity of having a Reynolds testify against tobacco, asked him to speak out.
Reynolds soon dedicated his life to the cause. He knew that his name gave him instant media attention. He founded the Foundation for a Smoke-Free America. He traveled across the country speaking to schools and at press conferences.
For his latest trip Friday, he asked the Chamber of Commerce if any hotels in Tampa forbade smoking. That’s how he met Pupello, proprietor of the Tahitian Inn.
+++
Like Reynolds, Pupello had watched as his father died at age 62. Others in the family – who didn’t smoke – lived as old as 89.
Pupello’s father started smoking at 18 in the Army. Back then, no one really knew smoking could kill you, Pupello said.
Sucking a cigarette was so accepted that Jesuit High School had a smoking lounge for seniors, he said.
Pupello, a football player at the University of Florida, quit smoking because it hurt his performance on the field. But he could never get his father to stop.
Now, his dad’s hotel does not allow smoking in the diner, which is being renovated. Soon, there will be no rooms at the inn that allow smoking. The marquee facing Dale Mabry Highway urges voters to approve Amendment 6.
As the news conference unfolded Friday with Reynolds talking to reporters, Pupello watched from the sidelines and held his 9-year-old daughter’s hand.
“I don’t want my daughter or my son to sit in a place and have (smoking) going on,” Pupello said.
From a distance, his father gazed out from the photograph on the wall.
– David Karp can be reached at 226-3376 or karp@sptimes.com.
PHOTO, ASSOCIATED PRESS, (2); PHOTO
METRO
ACROSS THE REGION
Across The Region [Corrected 11/09/02]
1,351 words
2 November 2002
The Tampa Tribune
FINAL
HILLSBOROUGH
R.J. Reynolds’ Grandson Stumps For Smoking Ban
TAMPA – The grandson of the late R.J. Reynolds came through Tampa Friday to campaign on behalf of Florida’s proposed smoking ban.
Miami Beach native Patrick Reynolds, an antismoking advocate, appeared with fitness author Don Ardell, who is running for mayor of Tampa in 2003.
Both support Amendment 6, which would ban indoor smoking in restaurants and other workplaces. Volunteers collected more than 600,000 signatures to get the measure on the ballot for Tuesday.
“This didn’t come from Gov. Bush, and it didn’t come from the Florida Legislature,” Reynolds said. “The politicians were unresponsive to something the majority of citizens want.”
The amendment appears headed for approval. A poll by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc., conducted in October, found 68 percent of voters support the ban and 26 percent oppose it.
Laura Kinsler
Biggest Donor to the Republicans Is Phillip Morris — Comparison of Clinton and Bush on Tobacco
587 words
3 November 2002
10:00 am
PR Newswire
( 2002, PR Newswire)
LOS ANGELES, Nov. 3 /PRNewswire/ — “The biggest donor to the Republican Party in this election is Phillip Morris, and they’re too smart to give millions of dollars away for no reason,” says Patrick Reynolds, an opponent of the tobacco industry and a grandson of tobacco company founder RJ Reynolds. Reynolds has been an advocate for regulating Big Tobacco since 1986, and for campaign finance reform. (See links below for fact checking.)
“Look at the difference between the Clinton and Bush administrations on tobacco. It’s 180 degrees,” says Reynolds. “Clinton filed for FDA regulation of Big Tobacco, but thus far, President Bush has not pushed Congress for FDA regulation. Clinton wanted a $1 per pack Federal tax on cigarettes, but under Bush, the momentum for this just evaporated. Clinton filed a $100 million lawsuit against Big Tobacco, but Bush chose to grossly underfund the suit in his budget, which greatly impeded the Justice Department’s pursuit of it. Many advocates estimate that the Federal lawsuit would have brought $100 billion.
“The tobacco lobby has also influenced dozens of State legislatures; only 5 States have set aside sufficient funds from the multi-billion dollar tobacco settlement to meet the minimum amount recommended by the CDC for an effective tobacco education campaign. States like Arizona, California, Minnesota, Maine and Florida have well funded programs and a corresponding success. Florida’s program reduced middle school smoking by 47%, but Governor Jeb Bush cut back funds for Florida’s tobacco control program.
“In summary, the tobacco industry, with its campaign contributions and well connected lobbyists, has been far too influential over the President’s party. And if the tobacco industry can have its way with a majority of Republicans, one can only conclude that the other special interests are having their way with them rather easily as well.”
Philip Morris is the leading campaign contributor to Republicans in federal elections during the 2001-02 election cycle, giving $2,666,163 (as of October 2), according to a new report by the Center for Responsive Politics. Philip Morris also gave $537,638 to Democrats during the 2001-02 cycle. http://www.opensecrets.org/pubs/toporgs/appendix.asp(See No. 5.)
Philip Morris has also been the leading overall campaign contributor to Republicans in federal elections since 1989, giving $14,300,228. Political giving by Phillip Morris since 1990: http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.asp?Order=A&View=Phttp://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.asp?ID=D000000067&Name=Philip+Morrishttp://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/021022/180/2hv24.html
BACKGROUND
On November 2 Patrick Reynolds completed a five city tour of Florida, to advocate Amendment 6 as a private citizen. If passed, it will send a mandate to the Florida legislature for a 100% statewide smoking ban.
Reynolds began his campaign after his father, R.J. Reynolds, Jr., died in 1964 from emphysema, caused by smoking the family’s brands. His eldest brother, R.J. Reynolds III, also died from emphysema caused by smoking, in 1994. Mr. Reynolds is President of Tobaccofree.org in Los Angeles.
Full bio: https://www.tobaccofree.org/bio.htm
Additional live contacts and research for fact checking are posted at https://www.tobaccofree.org/cash.htm
http://tbutton.prnewswire.com/prn/11690X68315940
/CONTACT: Patrick Reynolds of Tobaccofree.org, +1-310-880-1111/ 10:00 EST
Suburbs; B
IN THE COMMUNITY
Staff
475 words
20 November 2002
Greenville News (SC)
2
GREENVILLE
Reynolds grandson coming to Greenville
Patrick Reynolds, a grandson of tobacco company founder R.J. Reynolds and a tobacco critic, will be in Greenville on Thursday and Friday for three appearances.
Reynolds will speak Thursday to members of the Greenville County Medical Society at a luncheon. Thursday evening, he will hold a public address at Greenville Technical College beginning at 7:30 p.m. in the Technical Resource Center Auditorium.
Friday, Reynolds will speak to high school students at the Palmetto Expo Center.
City People; CC
Blue Ridge High School holds coat drive
Staff
4,444 words
20 November 2002
Greenville News (SC)
11
2002, Greenville News.
Greenville
The goal of the Green Light Campaign is to teach students to focus on their strengths to making appropriate decisions. The event will feature local agencies, court and law enforcement officials in their professional roles along with a keynote address by Patrick Reynolds, an anti-tobacco advocate and grandson of R.J. Reynolds.
Metro; B
R.J. Reynolds’ grandson fights for smoke-free U.S.
Liv Osby
Staff
542 words
22 November 2002
Greenville News (SC)
1
2002, Greenville News.
He saw family members die of smoking-related illnesses
By Liv Osby
HEALTH WRITER
losby@greenvillenews.com
Given his family’s history of tobacco-related death, it’s a wonder Patrick Reynolds ever took up the habit himself.
But at 17, the grandson of tobacco magnate R.J. Reynolds decided smoking would make him hip, cool, more attractive to girls.
Just two years earlier, he watched his father struggle for breath as he lay dying of emphysema. His aunt lost a lung to cancer before the disease killed her, and his older brother died of emphysema.
It took Reynolds 17 years to quit smoking and evolve into the anti-tobacco activist who spoke to Upstate health-care providers and others on Thursday to mark the Great American Smokeout. This morning, because 90 percent of smokers are hooked before they’re 19, as he was, Reynolds brings his message to area high school students at the Palmetto Expo Center.
“In this country, 60 percent of smokers started before they were 14,” he said. “I tell kids that all the tobacco industry has to do is sit back and wait until (they) get addicted.”
In the Palmetto State, 36 percent of high school students smoke and 14 percent of teenage boys use chewing tobacco, Reynolds said.
Some 90,000 South Carolinians who are 18 or younger today will die from tobacco use, he said.
“That’s unacceptable,” he said, “and entirely preventable.”
Reynolds, 53, began on the path that would make him persona non grata with some family members when the anger he felt over his father’s death surfaced during therapy for his 1985 divorce. Four years later, he launched the nonprofit Foundation for a Smokefree America, pitting him against the industry that made his family rich.
Carol Reeve, executive director of Greenville Family Partnership, said Reynolds was invited to the Upstate to help anti-smoking groups hone their message and to advocate for an increase in the state tobacco tax, a proposal that fizzled this year when neither the governor nor the Legislature backed it.
Reynolds says a tobacco tax hike is a popular way to raise funds to defray medical costs associated with smoking, which he sets at $2.17 for every pack of cigarettes sold.
“Ballot measures loom on the horizon as the most effective way of governing if politicians aren’t going to respond to the will of the people they represent,” he said.
A ban on restaurant smoking in Florida would not have passed without a referendum that showed the support of 71 percent of residents, he said. Smoking is now forbidden in many public places, and Reynolds believes America will be tobacco-free before long.
“Now we look back and say, ‘Did people ever smoke on planes?’ ” he says. “One day, we will look back and ask, ‘Did people ever smoke?’ “
GEORGE GARDNER/The Associated Press
Informative talk: Tobacco use kills 1,200 Americans every day and as many as 3 million people a year worldwide, Patrick Reynolds, grandson of the founder of R.J. Reynolds, told Upstate health-care providers and others Thursday as part of the Great American Smokeout.
NATIONAL
No-smoking signs go up all over Del. The state now has the country’s strictest limits on indoor smoking. Many are unhappy about it.
By Sandy Bauers and Lini S. Kadaba
Inquirer Staff Writers
1,055 words
28 November 2002
The Philadelphia Inquirer
CITY-D-EAST
A01
Smoke was wafting through the room, clouding above the chandeliers, lingering over the formal table settings, and curling around Jeff Marks’ head as he puffed on his Honduran cigar – a Punch Grand Cru, Winston Churchill’s favorite – savoring the taste and exhaling slowly.
All around him Tuesday evening at the Columbus Inn, dozens of men – and a few women – were lighting up. The room was a cumulus of second-hand smoke.
“One more night of decadence,” said Marks, a chemical engineer who had come to the restaurant for this defiant celebration.
At 12:01 a.m. yesterday, smoking at the Columbus Inn and other public places became illegal in the First State.
Delaware now has the toughest smoking ban in the country, outlawing toking on tobacco in restaurants, bars, casinos, church bingo halls, hotel lobbies, and other public indoor places.
“This act should not be perceived as a ban on smoking,” Gov. Ruth Ann Minner, an ex-smoker who has lost family members to lung cancer, said at a news conference yesterday. “Rather, it should be seen as eliminating a cause of cancer from public places where many people work and many people spend their time.”
The issue has stirred clouds of passions on both sides.
Legislators have vowed to gut the law when they return in January, and some locals are sporting “Ban Ruth Ann” bumper stickers and calling for the impeachment of Minner, who campaigned on the issue.
Meanwhile, business owners say they are expecting to lose customers to Pennsylvania establishments that allow smoking. Dover Downs worries that gamblers who want to smoke will travel to slots in Atlantic City and West Virginia.
Antitobacco groups are hailing the comprehensive ban. “A law like this will protect every Delawarean,” said Karen Murtha, spokeswoman for the IMPACT Delaware Tobacco Prevention Coalition, which lobbied for the bill, sponsored by Sen. David McBride.
In 1994, California became the first state to enact a comprehensive smoking ban. Earlier this month, Florida passed a constitutional amendment to stub out smoking in its restaurants. Delaware has set the bar higher than any other state by mandating that hotels must set aside at least 75 percent of rooms as nonsmoking.
The Foundation for a Smoke-Free America has hailed the recent state bans. “There is no safe level of secondhand smoke,” said Patrick Reynolds, its president and the grandson of tobacco company founder R.J. Reynolds. “I think it’s a good indicator of the national mood on banning smoking.”
On Tuesday, many First State bars and restaurants held “last gasp” parties, at which patrons fumed about the new law.
“It’s government taking away another choice,” said Sam Driban, owner of Black Cat Cigar Co. in Philadelphia, as he smoked a Dominican Macanudo Gold Label Tudor cigar at the Columbus Inn.
Driban, who helped host the event, worried that he was witnessing the end of an era, not to mention business.
“The next thing you know,” he said, “they’re going to tell the chef he can’t use butter. George Orwell is looking down and laughing.”
Joe Van Horn, the inn’s general manager, was trying not to make things personal, though he expected to lose business. “I have nothing against Ruth Ann,” he kept repeating.
“We’re a hospitality business,” he said. “We feel it’s not right to exclude.”
Others were less diplomatic. “She won’t be in office too much longer,” Ralph Figueroa Jr., general manager of Touchdown Restaurant and Sports Pub in Dover, said of his governor. “She needs to… relax a little bit.”
Figueroa, who does not smoke, said he would lose business, because 80 percent of his customers smoke. “A little bit of freedom is gone,” he said. “You know there’s smoking in here, yet you still come. I don’t understand how that’s a problem.”
The pub had applied for a waiver, allowed for “compelling” reasons. Touchdown’s proposal included a glass partition between the smoking and nonsmoking parts of the restaurant, a separate ventilation system, and a separate entrance.
But it and 11 other places, including Dover Downs, three hospitals, and a senior center, were denied waivers. Three other requests are pending review by a state agency.
The legislation was partly prompted by the state’s high rate of cancer, said Gregory Patterson, Minner’s communications director. Delaware ranks third in the nation for lung-cancer cases among women, and fifth among men, according to the American Cancer Society.
The ban will be enforced on a complaint basis, with violators fined $100 for a first offense and no less than $250 for a second.
Some Pennsylvania restaurants are expecting an influx of customers in their bars and smoking sections.
“We’ve already seen an increase in the number of patrons who smoke, just in the last week,” said Ted Fogel, owner of Cuisines on Route 202, virtually a stone’s throw north of the Delaware border.
The restaurant was also a lure for the late-night drinking crowd in the 1950s and ’60s, when Delaware bars had to stop serving after midnight and Pennsylvania bars could continue until 2 a.m.
Known then as the Red Coach Inn, the place “had quite a heyday,” Fogel said. “I wonder if I’m going to see the same result.”
At L’Osteria in North Wilmington, owner and chef Anthony Stella was not worried. He banned smoking at his restaurant and bar on April 1 – when the legislation was still under debate.
“We gained business from it,” said Stella, a pack-a-day smoker.
To Xavier Teixido, owner of Harry’s Savoy Grille, which ended a decade of cigar nights with a sold-out event last Friday, the ban signals a sea change in the whole bar atmosphere.
“We sort of look at the bar as being sort of the last bastion of political incorrectness,” he said. It’s where you go after work to get a drink, say how much you hate your boss, tell an off-color joke and, yes, light a cigarette without fear of offending anyone. “I’m going to miss that.”
Delaware’s Ban on Public Smoking Goes into Effect.
By The Philadelphia Inquirer.
1,074 words
28 November 2002
KRTBN Knight-Ridder Tribune Business News: Philadelphia Inquirer
Nov. 28-WILMINGTON, Del.-Smoke was wafting through the room, clouding above the chandeliers, lingering over the formal table settings, and curling around Jeff Marks’ head as he puffed on his Honduran cigar – a Punch Grand Cru, Winston Churchill’s favorite – savoring the taste and exhaling slowly.
All around him Tuesday evening at the Columbus Inn, dozens of men – and a few women – were lighting up. The room was a cumulus of second-hand smoke.
“One more night of decadence,” said Marks, a chemical engineer who had come to the restaurant for this defiant celebration.
At 12:01 a.m. yesterday, smoking at the Columbus Inn and other public places became illegal in the First State.
Delaware now has the toughest smoking ban in the country, outlawing toking on tobacco in restaurants, bars, casinos, church bingo halls, hotel lobbies, and other public indoor places.
“This act should not be perceived as a ban on smoking,” Gov. Ruth Ann Minner, an ex-smoker who has lost family members to lung cancer, said at a news conference yesterday. “Rather, it should be seen as eliminating a cause of cancer from public places where many people work and many people spend their time.”
The issue has stirred clouds of passions on both sides.
Legislators have vowed to gut the law when they return in January, and some locals are sporting “Ban Ruth Ann” bumper stickers and calling for the impeachment of Minner, who campaigned on the issue.
Meanwhile, business owners say they are expecting to lose customers to Pennsylvania establishments that allow smoking. Dover Downs worries that gamblers who want to smoke will travel to slots in Atlantic City and West Virginia.
Antitobacco groups are hailing the comprehensive ban. “A law like this will protect every Delawarean,” said Karen Murtha, spokeswoman for the IMPACT Delaware Tobacco Prevention Coalition, which lobbied for the bill, sponsored by Sen. David McBride.
In 1994, California became the first state to enact a comprehensive smoking ban. Earlier this month, Florida passed a constitutional amendment to stub out smoking in its restaurants. Delaware has set the bar higher than any other state by mandating that hotels must set aside at least 75 percent of rooms as nonsmoking.
The Foundation for a Smoke-Free America has hailed the recent state bans. “There is no safe level of secondhand smoke,” said Patrick Reynolds, its president and the grandson of tobacco company founder R.J. Reynolds. “I think it’s a good indicator of the national mood on banning smoking.”
On Tuesday, many First State bars and restaurants held “last gasp” parties, at which patrons fumed about the new law.
“It’s government taking away another choice,” said Sam Driban, owner of Black Cat Cigar Co. in Philadelphia, as he smoked a Dominican Macanudo Gold Label Tudor cigar at the Columbus Inn.
Driban, who helped host the event, worried that he was witnessing the end of an era, not to mention business.
“The next thing you know,” he said, “they’re going to tell the chef he can’t use butter. George Orwell is looking down and laughing.”
Joe Van Horn, the inn’s general manager, was trying not to make things personal, though he expected to lose business. “I have nothing against Ruth Ann,” he kept repeating.
“We’re a hospitality business,” he said. “We feel it’s not right to exclude.”
Others were less diplomatic. “She won’t be in office too much longer,” Ralph Figueroa Jr., general manager of Touchdown Restaurant and Sports Pub in Dover, said of his governor. “She needs to … relax a little bit.”
Figueroa, who does not smoke, said he would lose business, because 80 percent of his customers smoke. “A little bit of freedom is gone,” he said. “You know there’s smoking in here, yet you still come. I don’t understand how that’s a problem.”
The pub had applied for a waiver, allowed for “compelling” reasons.
Touchdown’s proposal included a glass partition between the smoking and nonsmoking parts of the restaurant, a separate ventilation system, and a separate entrance.
But it and 11 other places, including Dover Downs, three hospitals, and a senior center, were denied waivers. Three other requests are pending review by a state agency.
The legislation was partly prompted by the state’s high rate of cancer, said Gregory Patterson, Minner’s communications director.
Delaware ranks third in the nation for lung-cancer cases among women, and fifth among men, according to the American Cancer Society.
The ban will be enforced on a complaint basis, with violators fined $100 for a first offense and no less than $250 for a second.
Some Pennsylvania restaurants are expecting an influx of customers in their bars and smoking sections.
“We’ve already seen an increase in the number of patrons who smoke, just in the last week,” said Ted Fogel, owner of Cuisines on Route 202, virtually a stone’s throw north of the Delaware border.
The restaurant was also a lure for the late-night drinking crowd in the 1950s and ’60s, when Delaware bars had to stop serving after midnight and Pennsylvania bars could continue until 2 a.m.
Known then as the Red Coach Inn, the place “had quite a heyday,” Fogel said. “I wonder if I’m going to see the same result.”
At L’Osteria in North Wilmington, owner and chef Anthony Stella was not worried. He banned smoking at his restaurant and bar on April 1 – when the legislation was still under debate.
“We gained business from it,” said Stella, a pack-a-day smoker.
To Xavier Teixido, owner of Harry’s Savoy Grille, which ended a decade of cigar nights with a sold-out event last Friday, the ban signals a sea change in the whole bar atmosphere.
“We sort of look at the bar as being sort of the last bastion of political incorrectness,” he said. It’s where you go after work to get a drink, say how much you hate your boss, tell an off-color joke and, yes, light a cigarette without fear of offending anyone. “I’m going to miss that.”
By Sandy Bauers and Lini S. Kadaba
To see more of The Philadelphia Inquirer, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.philly.com
2002, The Philadelphia Inquirer. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
Clearing THE AIR Citizen groups, experts want to blow away secondhand smoke in workplaces.
BY JACK W. HILL ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
1,476 words
6 January 2003
The Arkansas Democrat Gazette
23
Across the United States, fans of smoke-free air are mobilizing to put an end to secondhand smoke, often after tiring of waiting for action from legislative bodies or other governmental leaders.
In the South, voters have started taking matters into their own hands to fight a substance that can cause lung and other cancers, heart disease and major and minor illnesses in children.
In November, Florida voters – by a 71 percent margin – approved Amendment 6, the Smoke-Free for Health initiative, which will take effect in the Sunshine State on Tuesday and result in an atmosphere where only stand-alone bars, retail tobacco shops, smoking rooms in hotels and motels and private homes not used for commercial health or child care are exempt from the new law.
One man got the ball rolling in Florida a decade ago after the cancer death of his mother. Martin Larsen started a coalition, the Smoke-Free for Health Initiative, and tried to get his state’s Legislature interested. It wasn’t, probably because of the powerful tobacco lobby and the Florida Restaurant Association, which supports property rights over health concerns.
Larsen was determined to make a difference. So he started a petition drive aided by the American Lung Association, the American Cancer Society and the American Heart Association, whose combined efforts proved successful in getting the measure on the ballot and getting it passed.
California is well known for its pioneering efforts four years ago to restrict smoking. Delaware now has a statewide workplace smoking ban, and Boston and New York are moving in the same direction. The Boston public health commissioners voted unanimously Dec. 12 to ban smoking in all bars, restaurants and nightclubs starting May 5, when fines as high as $1,000 can be visited upon owners who permit their customers to smoke. In so doing, Boston became the 70th Massachusetts town to guarantee its citizens smoke-free air in their workplaces.
On Dec. 30, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed a law expanding New York’s restrictions against smoking in bars, restaurants and other workplaces. Previously, smoking was permitted in restaurants with fewer than 35 seats and in standalone bars.
Progress is slower in Arkansas, where Gov. Huckabee stepped in a year ago to stop the state Health Department from taking matters into its own hands with an administrative antismoke ruling. He stopped smoking opponents for the time being.
Meanwhile, efforts are under way to educate citizens to the dangers of secondhand smoke. The Coalition for a Tobacco Free Arkansas has undertaken an ambitious schedule of activity (Web site: www.ar freshair.com) On Oct. 23, the Coalition and two other organizations, the Health Department’s Stamp Out Smoking program and Arkansans for Drug Free Youth conducted a Teen Summit on Tobacco and Alcohol at Alltel Arena in North Little Rock.
Featured speaker was Patrick Reynolds, grandson of R.J. Reynolds, founder of one of the biggest of the tobacco corporations. (R.J. Reynolds died of emphysema in 1916.)
In November, the Coalition conducted a workshop, “Breathe Easy: Working Toward Smoke-Free Communities Training,” in Hot Springs for the Garland County Tobacco Free Coalition, with the focus on secondhand smoke, media relations and advocacy. The keynote speaker was Dave Goerlitz, a former “Winston Man,” who noted that Arkansas smoking foes have to make do with the money made from the interest on Arkansas’ share of the 1998 tobacco settlement (see sidebar).
John Campbell, the director of respiratory therapy at St. Joseph’s Mercy Health Center in Hot Springs, showed no mercy in his characterization of the effects of secondhand smoke.
“I see the damage, the end result,” he said. “There are encouraging statistics, but others that are not so encouraging. Last year 15 million smokers quit, but 3,000 new smokers start every day. Each year 430,000 smokers die in this country. And then there are the medical costs: $50 billion each year and $47 million in lost productivity.
“It doesn’t take much to addict a teenager when they’re 12 or 13. It’s a quicker addiction than heroin.”
(According to a study published last year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, smoking costs the United States $150 billion each year in health costs and lost productivity.)
Campbell said that 21 percent of physicians are still smokers, according to the Medical College of Wisconsin’s Healthlink Web site.
The resulting medical damage done by smoking is grouped under the term Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, which includes bronchitis, emphysema and asthma, all conditions that affect breathing. Asthma isn’t caused by smoking, but all three conditions are worsened by exposure to secondhand smoke.
“What we call COPD causes 112,000 deaths a year,” Campbell says.
“And then there’s the 13 million office visits to doctors because of it, and 668,000 hospitalizations. Those with COPD are most often complaining of shortness of breath, some 44 percent; [difficulty in] talking, 32 percent; and there’s 8 percent who can’t leave their houses at all. And that’s all preventable. We’re all paying the costs of secondhand smoke through insurance, Medicare and disability.
“Before it was banned in hospitals, you’d go in a room and a mother would be smoking with her cigarette inches from her child. And they would wonder why their kids were having problems with things like asthma. Tests for asthmatics can’t be done until age 4 or 5; until age 7, children are still developing alveoli in their lungs. They tend to get better when they go off to school, as they get away from their parents’ smoking.”
Campbell recommends that parents worried about their children’s exposure to secondhand smoke check out their baby sitters and day-care providers as possible places where secondhand smoke might be a danger.
Alissa Beach, media specialist with the coalition, discussed how citizenry could try to rally other foes of secondhand smoke. As an example, she cited identifying the problem as the deadly effects of secondhand smoke. According to the CDC, secondhand smoke causes 35,000 to 40,000 deaths per year in the United States.
“The resulting commitment to do something about it could lead to an effort for a restaurant smoking ban, so that cooks, busboys, dishwashers and waiters would have a better chance for health,” she said. “Our main emphasis is that nonsmokers have the right to breathe clean air – smoking is a privilege, breathing is a right.
“We’ve found that 71 percent of people asked about smoking policies in restaurants prefer nonsmoking restaurants, and even 41 percent of smokers prefer them.”
Not everyone in the restaurant industry is convinced that mandatory nonsmoking in restaurants and bars would be a good thing. Mark Abernathy, owner of Loca Luna and Bene Vita, both in Little Rock, and himself a nonsmoker, has emerged as the spokesman of the restaurant and bar industry members who prefer the status quo.
“I don’t smoke and I don’t like to be around it, but my big issue is the rights of a business owner to control his own destiny,” Abernathy says. “The business owners and the marketplace should be the ones to determine the question. I think we’ve done a reasonable job of trying to accommodate nonsmokers; in both my restaurants, there are separate ventilation systems, and even a separate nonsmoking room at Bene Vita.”
Abernathy said he’s not as adamant if the public votes to eliminate smoke in all workplaces ; it’s just the idea of a committee of Health Department officials decreeing it that makes him uncomfortable. “It needs to be across the board, and not just certain size restaurants but not bars.”
One Web site, Tobacco Scam (www.tobaccoscam.ucsf.edu), run by the University of California at San Francisco, takes issue with restaurant claims like those touted on Options (www.pmoptions.com), a Web site maintained by Philip Morris, that ventilation systems can eliminate the problem of secondhand smoke, pointing out that Honeywell, a leading manufacturer of such systems, “has not in the past and does not make health hazard claims.”
The Tobacco Scam site also cites the savings to be realized by restaurant owners operating in a smoke-free environment because they won’t have to worry about carpet or table burns, they won’t have to clean ceilings, windows and draperies as often, and the risk of fire is decreased.
The coalition, which held its first Smoke-Free Communities conference in 2001 in Fayetteville and has sponsored others in Pine Bluff, Jonesboro and Texarkana, is planning additional meetings in Fort Smith in February and Batesville in April.
This story was originally published on Monday, January 06, 2003.
Local and state; A
Tobacco heir urges students at junior high not to smoke
Allen Hicks
Staff
297 words
4 April 2003
Marshfield News-Herald
A3
By Allen Hicks
Marshfield News-Herald
Patrick Reynolds said he was 17 when he took up smoking, and he was soon addicted.
“After watching my dad die (from cigarettes), I still started smoking,” Reynolds told seventh- and eighth-grade students at Marshfield Junior High School Thursday. “Quitting was one of the hardest things that I ever did.”
Reynolds, a professional speaker and grandson of tobacco company founder R.J. Reynolds, urged students to never start smoking. Reynolds, founder of the Foundation for a Smokefree America, said children can get addicted in as little as two weeks.
“I knew (smoking) was bad, but I didn’t know all the facts,” said Matt “Yugo” Staab, 15, a student who attended the presentation. Afterwards, Staab said he’s even more adamant about avoiding tobacco.
“Before it used to be `don’t do it.’ Now it’s `don’t do it’ even more,” he said.
Preventing teen smoking continues to be a key goal of the Tobacco Free Coalition of Wood County, especially since 11 is the average age when children begin to experiment with tobacco, said DaNita Carlson, county tobacco prevention specialist.
“Once you get started, and you’re addicted, it’s very hard to quit,” Carlson said. County prevention efforts are focused on 11- to 14-year-olds, she added.
Allen Hicks can be reached at 1-715-384-3131 or 1-800-967-2087, ext. 327 or at allen.hicks@cwnews.net.
Cutline: Casey Riffe/Marshfield News-Herald
Patrick Reynolds, grandson of tobacco company founder R.J. Reynolds, talks about the perception of smoking as “cool” during a presentation Thursday to seventh- and eighth-graders at Marshfield Junior High School.
Events scheduled for May 21-May 25 in Ohio
1,192 words
21 May 2003
06:36 pm
Associated Press Newswires
Wednesday, May 21
COLUMBUS:
–Patrick Reynolds, grandson of tobacco company founder R.J. Reynolds, speaks to schoolchildren about dangers of cigarette smoking, 12:45 to 1:45 p.m., Sullivant Elementary School, 791 Griggs Ave.; 2 to 3 p.m., Starling Middle School, 120 S. Central Ave. Contact: Patrick Reynolds, (310) 880-1111.
