[Intl-tobacco] Venezuela: Big tobacco firms use youth to lure people into the smoking habit in the developing world

[Robert Weissman]

Big tobacco firms use youth to lure people into the smoking habit in the
developing world
Latin America Press
 Vol. 35, No. 22, November 5, 2003
 ISSN 0254-203X

 Mike Ceaser in Caracas

 Double standard

 Attractive young people frolic on the beach, laugh at parties and kiss
in the rain =97 and they do it all it while smoking cigarettes. In the
wealthy, developed world where the big tobacco corporations are based,
marketing tobacco to youth is often barred or severely restricted. But
some of the same tobacco companies that have stopped marketing to youth
back home apply a different standard in Venezuela, in much of Latin
America and the rest of the developing world.

 "(For tobacco companies), we are third-class citizens," said Deputy
Rafael R=EDos, a member of the Venezuelan National Assembly's health
commission. In its advertising, Venezuelan cigarette maker Bigott, a
subsidiary of London-based British American Tobacco (BAT), employs only
young models engaged in typically youthful activities. Alluring models
in bathing suits celebrate on the beach after winning prizes by buying
cigarettes, enjoy smoking together at parties or playfully light up
under a jacket during a sudden tropical downpour.

 Venezuelan law does mandate health warnings on cigarette packs and on
advertisements, prohibits tobacco advertising on radio and television,
and outlaws tobacco sales to those under 18. But widespread cigarette
smuggling minimizes the value of healthwarnings and the restrictions in
sale. Although there are no statistics on smoking among youth available,
smoking is clearly popular among high school students. At the Don Bosco
High School in downtown Caracas, school officials keep vendors away from
the school entrance, but across the avenue several kiosks sell
cigarettes and show Bigott advertising. And on the neighboring square,
where students hang out, informal vendors =97 sometimes children
themselves =97 offer candy, telephone rentals and cigarettes =97 by the pac=
k
or as easily- affordable singles.

 Sitting on one of the square's concrete benches, David, 16, was smoking
beside his friends Diego and Marco, also 16. David said smoking helped
him to relax after school. "(Smoking) makes you feel good," added Diego.
The boys estimated 80 percent of their friends smoked. While stores
often refused to sell to them, they said they had little trouble buying
cigarettes from the sidewalk vendors. David and Diego said they were
aware of the health risks. Diego even has first-hand knowledge. He said
that his mother, 43 and a smoker, is dying from lung cancer. "One
worries, but one has to die from something," he said. David said was not
concerned about long-term effects. "I can quit whenever I want," he said.

 Bigott, which manufactures Kent and Lucky Strike brand cigarettes, as
well as Venezuelan brands Consul and Belmont, sells about 10 billion
cigarettes per year, controlling about 80 percent of Venezuela's
cigarette market. Bigott Corporate Relations Director Otoniel Piccardo
said the company does not market to people under 18 and that its
marketing is intended only to persuade smokers to switch brands.
Bigott's advertising employs only young-looking models, he said, because
young smokers are the ones most inclined to switch brands.

 Anti-smoking groups call that argument bogus. Because the overwhelming
majority of smokers start during their teens and
 become addicted for life, the groups say tobacco companies try to get
as many young people smoking as possible to create
 lifelong customers. National Deputy H=E9ctor Larreal, president of the
National Assembly's Health commission, said the panel is working on a
law to increase the size of the health warning to cover 33 percent of
the cigarette pack.

 Bigott spokesman Piccardo said the company had voluntarily reformed its
marketing practices, stopping advertising on television and radio and in
movie theaters before such restrictions became law. He said the company
also decided several years ago to increase the size and prominence of
ads' health warnings. BAT's corporate website also that its marketing
standards "make it absolutely clear that our marketing activities should
not appeal to youth or suggest that smoking enhances popularity or
sporting, sexual or professional success."

 When asked about the romantic and social settings used in Bigott's
advertising, Piccardo acknowledged that the company "might fall a little
bit short." Deborah Arnott, director of the British chapter of the
anti-tobacco organization Action on Smoking and Health, said BAT's
Venezuelan marketing practices provided evidence of "sick double
standards at work which give a higher value to children here in the
company's home country than in the developing world."

 Youth smoking is also facilitated in Venezuela and many other nations
by cigarette smuggling, which in addition costs
 governments millions of dollars in lost taxes. Street vendors say their
smuggled cigarettes come from either the Colombian border city of Maicao
or the Venezuelan island of Margarita, a free-trade zone. A huge variety
of contraband cigarettes, including well-known brands such as Marlboro
and Belmont, as well as a medley of dirt-cheap brands of obscure origin,
are sold openly on nearly every downtown Caracas street corner.

 Bigott said that contraband costs it sales and that it opposes
cigarette smuggling. Yet many of the contraband cigarettes are Bigott
products.The combination of youth-attractive advertising and easy
availability of cheap cigarettes may boost cigarette sales but will
endanger the health of the population as the number of smokers in the
developed world balloons. That, in turn, will make a big impact on both
life expectancies and poor nations' health care budgets.

 Bigott has opposed advertising restrictions, saying that they will cost
jobs and tax money. "(Bigott representatives) visited the health
commission and talked about the economic impact of restrictions," Deputy
R=EDos said. "But the illnesses cost the state much more."