Tobacco Industry Violating Pledge to Stop Targeting Youth
by Allie Martin and Jim Brown
(AgapePress) – California's top law enforcement officer is accusing the biggest tobacco companies of failing to live up to a pledge made three years ago to stop advertising in magazines with large numbers of young readers.
In 1998, as part of a settlement with 46 states, the four biggest tobacco companies made the pledge to pull ads from magazines read by youth.
California Attorney General Bill Lockyer participated in the settlement and says that according to his research, three of the four biggest tobacco companies — R.J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson, and Lorillard — continue to appear in magazines such as Rolling Stone, People, Entertainment Weekly, Sports Illustrated, and TV Guide.
The largest tobacco company, Philip Morris, has stopped advertising in 50 magazines with young readers. The three who continue such advertising says they do so because the limits they agreed to in 1998 were only guidelines, not laws.
Lockyer said that based on his research, Americans age 12-17 will be exposed to at least 50 cigarette ads in magazines each year.
According to Lockyer, tobacco companies have one compelling reason to violate the 1998 settlement. “They kill their customers every year,” he says, “and they need to recruit new ones.”
by Chad Groening
(AgapePress) – The Boy Scouts of America is strongly objecting to a recent article in Newsweek Magazine that contends that America is torn over the Scouts' defense of pro-family values.
The article that appeared in the August 6 issue was entitled “The Battle for the Soul of the Boy Scouts.” It was replete with the typical left-wing characterization of the Scouts, using the term “discrimination” to describe the Scouts' ban on homosexuals serving as Scout leaders.
The piece also implied that a growing number of Americans disapprove of the ban. But Scouts spokesman Gregg Shields says polls clearly show that most Americans support the policy.
“First of all, America is not torn over its support for Boy Scouts,” Shields says. “Seventy-percent of the people we talked to agreed with our policies and our standards of membership. Most people agree with the Supreme Court finding allowing us to have standards of membership.”
Shields says all the Scouts want is for others to respect their opinion. “We don't have a problem with anyone who wants to disagree. We respect their right to disagree,” he notes. “We simply ask their tolerance of us to hold beliefs and opinions that might be different from theirs, that's all.”
But the radical homosexual movement does not respect their beliefs, despite the fact that last year the Supreme Court upheld the Scouts' pro-family policy.
(This update courtesy of Agape Press.)
