Targeting Kids
For Drugs

By Norman E. Kjono

ABCNEWS.com., Thursday, April 9, 1998, headline "Teen Tobacco Use: Bad News," byline Tristanne L. Walliser:

"Consider the facts:

In the next 24 hours, 3,000 kids will start smoking, according to the American Cancer Society."

Flashback, nearly seven years:

October 4, 1991, Secretary of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Dr. Louis P. Sullivan, at a press conference announcing the American Stop Smoking Intervention Study (Project ASSIST):

"About 3,000 teenagers in America begin smoking each day."

Project ASSIST, it is a seven year $135 million federal grant program with written objectives to increase taxes on tobacco, to expand regulatory authority over tobacco, and to diminish public tolerance of tobacco use. ASSIST, funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), is managed by the American Cancer Society (ACS).

On April 6, 1998 The Los Angeles Times published a Special to The Times by Kathleen Doheny. The headline of that article was "Science Starting to Tackle Teen Smoking." An interesting point caught my eye in that article:

"`The best likelihood of success [to keep kids from smoking] is to tie in the cessation program with an activity the kid likes.' Benowitz says. That might be athletics, he says, or a church youth group or other activity, making participation in one dependent upon the other. What's also worth a try, in his view, is nicotine patches for teens 15 or older." (Emphasis added.)

The above quote is attributed to Dr. Neal Benowitz, department of medicine, at UC San Francisco. Dr. David Sachs (pulmonary medicine at Stanford University) and John Pierce (cancer research at UC San Diego School of Medicine) are also quoted in the article. All three doctors are listed as members of The Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco (SRNT).

Both University of California and Stanford University have received anti-tobacco or substance abuse grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. So their anti-tobacco predisposition should be no surprise. It is, however, of extreme concern that anti-tobacco physicians advocate fifteen-year-old teens on nicotine, so long as it's a drug company patch.

A New Drug Company Strategy For Nicotine

The opinions of Dr. Benowitz were of interest in light of another quote attributed to him by The Wall Street Journal, February 27, 1998, in an article by Suein L. Hwang, headlined "Drug Makers See a Risky New Role for Nicotine:"

"The drug makers' new strategy [long term use of smoking cessation products] has some obvious advantages. `There will be less environmental smoke,' says Neal Benowitz, a nicotine expert at the University of California at San Francisco who was one of the scientific editors of the landmark surgeon general's report of 1988 that concluded that nicotine is addictive. `I'd much rather see people dependent on nicotine than on tobacco,' he adds." (Emphasis added.)

According to The Wall Street Journal, drug companies are exploring FDA approval for long term use of "Smoke Free" nicotine delivery products. So the FDA approves a substance for long term use that they have also declared to be addictive? Doctors advocate putting kids as young as fifteen on nicotine patches? That's apparently OK, nicotine is benign when administered through gums, patches and inhalers, they say.

Drug companies know that they will create a new generation of kids hooked on nicotine: a spokesman who advocates kids on nicotine patches edited the 1988 surgeon general's report that concluded nicotine is addictive.

The same Dr. Neal Benowitz says that nicotine patches for kids as young as fifteen is ". . . worth a try." You bet it's worth a try: according to The Wall Street Journal, the nicotine market is $25 billion per year. Drug company market share is relatively small, about $700 million in annual sales of nicotine gum, patches and inhalers.

What better way to exploit their "fair share" of the $25 billion per year nicotine market, than to get teens started on long term use of the patch? Products like SmithKline Beecham's Nicorette gum, McNeil Consumer Products' (Johnson & Johnson) Nicotrol patches, Pharmacia & Upjohn's nicotine inhalers (marketed through McNeil Consumer Products, a Johnson & Johnson Company) and nicotine substitute products such as Glaxo Wellcome's Zyban, seem to lead the current march on youth.

We can engage in all the denial in the world, but the fact remains that drug companies are presently working with the FDA to approve long term use of their alternative nicotine delivery products. The fact remains that an explicit and stated target group for those drug company nicotine delivery products is kids as young as fifteen. The fact remains that tens of millions from those with a vested interest in drug company success now support "Tobacco Free Kids" programs.

Those pharmaceutical dollars also develop the kids' market for "Smoke Free" nicotine delivery products. It seems that drug companies are the new generation of corporate institutions that recruit our kids for nicotine. Many activists who conduct anti-tobacco efforts in our classrooms are directly financed by drug company money. And, judging from the statements of Dr. Benowitz, as well as other doctors who receive funding from drug companies, the public record indicates that they see no problem at all with people using the patch. In fact, they openly advocate its use.

This presents a frightening contradiction for parents. Some parents applaud when activists promote new regulations prohibiting advertising within a thousand of feet of schools, yet we overlook the fact that anti-tobacco doctors and activists, who advocate teenagers use nicotine through "Smoke Free" delivery methods, are teaching our kids in the classroom. Drug companies don't need to advertise near schools,
their activists are discreetly promoting "Tobacco Free" nicotine patches, gums and inhalers face-to-face with kids in the classroom.

Do we believe that nicotine in gum, promoted by drug company activists, is less addicting than nicotine in snuff? Is nicotine in inhalers less addicting than that in cigarettes? Will wearing the patch, or sniffing an inhaler, be the next "cool" sign of teenage rebellion?

Does the American Cancer Society now endorse kids using nicotine inhalers? That would seem to be the case, they have received millions from drug company related foundations.

We parents need to aggressively address this issue. We cannot permit the drug company wolf to infiltrate school playgrounds in the sheep's clothing of "Smoke Free" nicotine products. What happened to "Nicotine Free" kids and schools? Are we so gullible or naive that we cannot discern the significant difference between "Smoke Free" and "Nicotine Free?" Are we so preoccupied with other things that we no longer take the time identify a clear threat to our kids?

The Nicotine Addiction Experts

Few would know better than Dr. Neal Benowitz what the addictive properties of nicotine truly are. He is, after all, the 1996-1997 President, and a member of the Executive Committee 1995-1998, of The Society for Research On Nicotine and Tobacco. Information about the society is available at www.ahsc.arizona.edu/srnt. One of the objectives of that society is:

"3) To provide the means by which various legislative, governmental, regulatory, and other public agencies and the ethical drug industry can obtain expert advice and consultation on critical issues concerning tobacco use, nicotine dependence, and the therapeutic uses of nicotine." (Emphasis added.)

Please note that nowhere in the above objective is the subject of "Nicotine Free" addressed. Nor is "Nicotine Free" addressed in the other two objectives, as you will find if you call up SRNT on the Internet and check it out.

But an apparently "ethical" recommendation by medical doctors is that fifteen-year-old kids be put on a nicotine patch distributed by SmithKline or Johnson & Johnson. If you would like to understand why this is happening with our kids today, call SRNT at (301) 251-9133, fax them at (301) 279-6749, or e-mail them at SRNT7680@aol.com. Ask them for a list of their 30 or so sponsors. You be the judgeyou may be surprised at who the sponsors for SRNT are.

You may also wish to ask the society why they do not advocate "Nicotine Free" kids, and what therapeutic value nicotine could possibly have for a teenager. You may want to address these questions to Dr. Benowitz. According to SRNT, Dr. Benowitz can be reached by telephone at his office (415)206-8324, by fax (415)206-8949, or by e-mail at NBENO@ITSA.UCSF.EDU.

These issues are far too transparent to be ignored. When a doctor says he would rather that people be dependent on nicotine, and that selling nicotine patches to kids is "worth a try," parents should become very concerned, quickly. When those statements are made in the context of a major push by drug companies to exploit a new market for long term use of their patch, gum and inhaler nicotine chemical delivery
products, we parents must stand to our responsibilities to our kids and speak out strongly against it.

As you consider these facts, bear in mind an important distinction: are we after "Smoke Free" kids or "Nicotine Free" kids?

Aggressive Drug Company Stealth Marketing

Should you doubt that drug companies will, and do, target our kids as a market for their chemicals, then you haven't yet heard about the dramatic rise in Ritalin, Prozac or other stimulant prescriptions for kids.

Vancouver B.C. - The Province, Friday, April 3, 1998, headline "Overdosing on Ritalin." The caption for this story by Ann Rees, Province staff reporter, is "A staggering increase in the number of children using the `chemical straitjacket' sparks renewed calls for a full investigation."

Ms. Rees states in her article:

"B.C.'s top medical watchdog has called for a probe into the prescribing of the drug Ritalin to children. His move comes after a Province investigation found huge variations in the use of the controversial drug in 22 communities.

The north Okanagan proved to be a centre of use, with more than 10 per cent of Vernon boys aged nine and 11 on the drug.

Dr. Rick Hudson, medical consultant to the health ministry, called the worrying increase in use `a chemical straightjacket'"

The above article is one of many that have been published recently about a dramatic increase in prescribing stimulant drugs for kids.

So when does nicotine get mixed in with the stimulant cocktail administered to nine-year-old kids? Is this a "therapeutic use" of nicotine that SRNT is researching? Dr. Benowitz and his colleagues could soon be telling parents in clinics, "It's OK, mom, nicotine is benign." Quite a marketing coup, drug company research says that those kids won't be able to function without the patch, for the rest of their lives.

Is anti-tobacco a front for drug companies, telling parents that a substance they claim is addictive has therapeutic value for kids?

An Associated Press article in The Seattle Times on February 18, 1998, headlined "Big increase in rate of prescribed drugs," byline Brenda C. Coleman, says:

"CHICAGO - Doctors prescribed antidepressants at soaring rates in the ten years ending in 1994, spurred by the new generation of drugs such as Prozac, researchers said.

Stimulant prescriptions also took a big jump with the dramatically increased rate of diagnosing attention-deficit hyperactivity disorders in children and adolescents, researchers reported."

An Associated Press article in The Seattle Times, dated January 7, 1998 is of interest. Headlined "As drug ad spending soars, patients seek brand names," byline John Henderson, it says:

"NEW YORK - In Lewisburg, Tenn., patients who never asked for a drug by name are suddenly demanding the cholesterol reducer Zocor from family doctor Clay Wilson. People with allergies ask Los Angeles physician John Brodhead for Claritin. In Dallas, psychiatrist Madhukar Trivedi is fending off depressed patients who `need' Prozac.

If we doubt the power of media to influence, indeed create, public opinion about tobacco, we deny the demand for Prozac, Ritalin, Zocor, and Claritin. Public opinion is shapedmolded by drug companies and other corporations to create demand for their products.

With anti-tobacco, however, deception is also a part of the campaign. Whatever anti-tobacco started out to be years ago, today it is a thinly veiled and well funded program aggressively supported by drug companies. It is executed with one purpose in mind: to create as many reasons and opportunities as possible for consumers to get their nicotine from druggists' "Smoke Free" and "Tobacco Free" products.

Which may explain why Dr. Benowitz seems to approve of kids wearing drug company nicotine patches, yet actively campaigns against tobacco company nicotine products.

The power of media to shape public opinion explains why we accept it as common place when Johnson & Johnson advertises Nicotrol on prime time television, and SmithKline Beecham's Nicorette sponsors a Sunday night sports show. Is the nicotine that drug companies sell nonaddictive, in addition to being benign as they now claim? Nicotine is nicotine, the only difference between the nicotine in Nicorette, Nicoderm CQ, or Nicotrol and cigarettes is how the product is peddled.

Drug companies have spent tens of millions to assure that their "Smoke Free" nicotine products are socially acceptable, while spending tens of millions more to finance professional anti-tobacco activists who negatively label and stigmatize consumers of competitive tobacco products.

Anti-tobacco's Actual Performance To Date

By all accounts in today's news, Project ASSIST has been a raving "success:" Billions per year in new taxes have already been levied on tobacco products; Senators McCain and Kennedy are seeing to it that billions more per year in taxes are the subject of a looting frenzy in our Congress; government regulatory intrusion in the workplace, families, and schools is increasing; and persons who lawfully consume legal tobacco products are social outcasts, pariahs.

And more kids are starting to smoke.

In her April 9 article Ms. Walliser says "Joe Camel Out, But Teen Smoking up," and:

"A recent 1997 Youth Risk Survey found that 43 percent of the nation's high school students either smoke cigarettes or chew tobacco, with those numbers steadily rising."

Not that Project ASSIST sponsors, NCI and ACS, should take all the credit, however. The Center for Disease control (CDC) deserves credit for their contribution to anti-tobacco with their nine-figure-funded IMPACT companion to ASSIST; California "leads" the nation with hundreds of millions in taxes on tobacco dedicated to anti-tobacco agendas; and pharmaceutical interests have committed tens of millions to fund activists who promote "Smoke Free" environments.

And more kids are starting to smoke.

Charitable institutions have contributed to the war on tobacco. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has provided over $60 million in grants that directly support anti-tobacco activists: for example, $2.4 million to Smoke Free Families (1995); $20 million to SmokeLess States
managed by the American Medical Association (1996); $19.5 million for Tobacco Free Kids (1996); and, in Philanthropy News Digest, December, 1997, $20.5 million to Surveillance of Youth.

And more kids are starting to smoke.

During the past seven years of organized and sustained anti-tobacco "intervention" in the workplace, families, and pocketbooks of everyday American citizens, tobacco advertising has diminished. Billboard tobacco advertising is being banned; Joe Camel has been executed; tobacco company sports event advertising is virtually eliminated; and youth publications do not carry tobacco advertising. In addition, cigarette vending machines are now virtually nonexistent.

And we see advertisements for Nicorette and Nicoderm CQ on evening television.

And more kids are starting to smoke.

During the past seven years of anti-tobacco operations public advertising opposed to smoking has dramatically increased. We see elephants' butts in Minnesota anti-tobacco ads; flatulent cows and dripping puss from the eye of a dead bird are featured in Florida's latest anti-tobacco ads; in California, Proposition 99 funds over a hundred million per year in anti-tobacco advertisements, some claiming that secondhand smoke is twenty times deadlier than smoking.

And more kids are starting to smoke.

We cannot overlook public education's contribution to smoking "statistics." In its current handbook, D.A.R.E. teaches that nicotine is a "highly addictive (habit forming) substance." Nicotine is included in D.A.R.E. study materials under "Mind-altering drugs that are abused by some young people." (Does D.A.R.E. accept sponsorship from drug companies?)

D.A.R.E. also teaches that negatively labeling one's classmates, if they think smoking is cool, is acceptable behavior: pages 41 and 42 in the D.A.R.E. Handbook communicate an explicit contrast message that kids like "Marsha" who think smoking is cool also lie about doing homework, and that it is OK if they are ostracized. In contrast "Stacy" is so perfect and that she bears no resemblance to any normal twelve-year-old kid. Of course, we all know that "Stacy" would never think about smoking.

D.A.R.E doesn't mention a word about nicotine through patches, gums and inhalers.

And more kids are starting to smoke.

Over the past seven years of aggressive anti-tobacco intervention, the goals of anti-tobacco have been explicit and clear. Project ASSIST anti-tobacco goals are clearly outlined on Page 22 in "Planning for a Tobacco Free Washington," as published by Washington State Project ASSIST in April of 1993, five years ago:

"Basic Principals of ASSIST:

Community involvement & ownership

Broad social & environmental change

Target high risk populations

Augment community and coalition

resources

The ASSIST Strategy:

Over a decade of research by the National Cancer Institute has shown that the most effective way to reduce smoking rates is to reduce public
tolerance of tobacco use through changes in policy, accompanied by media and public education programs." and;

"Policy:

Changing the public acceptance of tobacco use will require policy change, a critical ingredient of societal change. Public policies, formulated at the state or local level, can regulate where, when, and how tobacco can be used, sold, and purchased. ASSIST funds will be used to empower communities and agencies to adopt four types of tobacco control policies:

increasing the price of tobacco products
increasing the number of smoke free environments;
restricting access and availability of tobacco products; and
restricting tobacco advertising and promotion"

But nowhere in Project ASSIST literature is there any mention of controlling the use of nicotine gums, patches and inhalers.

There can be no doubt that anti-tobacco Project ASSIST and related programs have been wildly successful in each of the four policy areas it outlined over five years ago. CDC's IMPACT, and programs funded by drug companies and related interests, have been equally "successful."

And more kids are starting to smoke.

Why is there a gush of media reports in 1998 that more kids are starting to smoke? If anti-tobacco set out to save the kids in 1991, spent billions to do it, and achieved every policy goal that they set out to accomplish, how can it be that more kids are starting to smoke today?

It is time for responsible parents to separate the "Save the Kids" excuse from the tax and mandate reality. The wheat of vastly expanded government revenues and authority is being overlooked as we focus on the chaff being thrown up by the antis about kids. Demonstrated reality is that the American kids baby has been thrown out with the anti-tobacco drug company bath water.

Over the past seven years of aggressive anti-tobacco activities, about the only thing that we can say for anti-tobacco is that it has accomplished a major expansion of the youth market for drug company nicotine patches, gums and inhalers. Coincidence? I sincerely doubt it.

And now we hear medical doctors saying that nicotine is benign, if administered "Smoke Free." We also hear that fifteen-year-old kids on the patch is ". . . worth a try." Serendipity cosmic synchronisity? Not on your child's life.

When do responsible parents who genuinely care about their children wake up, and get it: seven years and billions of dollars dedicated to the anti-tobacco themes of intolerance for state defined "target groups" to "justify" new taxes and expanded regulatory authority has expanded the kids' market for drug company nicotine products?

Kids were the excuse for kicking off anti-tobacco programs years ago. By what stretch of rational judgement do we now accept that kids are the excuse to massively expand those programs, after they are an overwhelming failure while increasing the opportunity for drug companies to exploit youth nicotine market share?

Is anti-tobacco the most successful drug company stealth marketing campaign, ever?

When it's about $700 Department of Defense toilet seats in airplanes, perhaps we can afford fiscal insanity and delusional government programs. When it's about ours kids, however, the costs of anti-tobacco are too high.

It is obvious that politicians on the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives Commerce Committees choose to not get it. We as parents, however, had better get itwe had better get it real fast. Our kids are on the line here.

Based upon seven years of past performance, the first common sense thing that we do to save the kids from smoking is shut down every anti-tobacco program in existence, and throw the activists out of our public schools. Not only are the antis not getting the job done, but they are also promoting an environment of intolerance for others while they screw things up for our kids.

Anti-tobacco presents nicotine patches, gums and inhalers as an acceptable ("cool?") products, while tobacco is vilified and kids who consume it are ostracized. This is good?

Who Really Done It?

As I write this, I am not employed by, nor do I receive compensation from, any tobacco interest. I am a free-lance writer and novelist. I also do not have any immediate prospects of being employed by any tobacco interest.

My general view of tobacco companies, as expressed in "King George Reincarnated," has been that tobacco companies were the India Tea Company in a nationwide role play with King Willie and his parliament. My personal opinion is that parties to the tobacco settlement, however it works out, are looters attempting to gratify their fiscal urges and liability problems on the colonists' nickel. Needless to say, I am no apologist for the tobacco industry.

Personally, I regard anti-tobacco activists as economic pedophiles. There may be something lower than activists financed by pharmaceutical and taxpayer money who use kids as an excuse to dump political dogma on members of Targeting Kids For Drugs Page Six

their own communities to make a federal or charitable grant buck, but I don't know what that species could possibly be.

I do not approve of minors, including my son, using nicotine in any form. I've addressed issues relating to kids at some length in "Hands Off Our Kids" and "Let's Really Save The Kids." I wouldn't permit a Dr. to offer my son a nicotine patch any more than I would offer any kid a cigarette. I want my son to be "Nicotine Free," and I am not buying a drug company "Smoke Free" marketing scam when it comes to my child.

Perhaps this view of the parties to the tobacco issue provides a unique perspective. Over four years of studying the tobacco story I have acquired a significant body of facts. I'd like to share a few of them with you:

1. Tobacco companies do not advocate teens on nicotine, anti-tobacco activists do. Mr. Steven Goldstone, chairman of RJR Nabisco has said publicly that he will fire anyone who targets kids for their nicotine products. Dr. Neal Benowitz, a consultant paid by drug interest money, says on ABCNEWS.com that fifteen-year-olds on nicotine
patches is ". . . worth a try." And that fifteen-year-old will not become addicted to Johnson & Johnson's nicotine? Go ahead, dad, swallow that line.

2. Tobacco companies have not said that they would prefer that people were dependent on nicotine. Philip Morris and others have made it expressly clear over several years that they regard their product as an adult choice. Dr. Neal Benowitz is quoted in The Wall Street Journal as saying that he would prefer people be dependent upon nicotine rather than tobacco. Go ahead, mom, blindly accept the fact that a medical doctor offers your child a choice between nicotine in patches or nicotine in cigarettes.

Why not the choice of no nicotine at all, under any circumstances? Then again, we don't have the same worries as Dr. Benowitz, I guess: how do we keep the Johnson & Johnson common stock funded grants flowing? Dr. Benowitz has chosen his pocketbook over our kids.

3. Tobacco companies do not advertise nicotine products on prime time television, drug companies do. Cigarettes have not been advertised on television for decades. Yet, this weekend I viewed advertisements for SmithKline Beecham nicotine products on television.

4. Tobacco companies are not presently working with the FDA, to secure approval for long term use of their nicotine products. According to The Wall Street Journal, however, drug companies are working with the FDA for approval of long term use of their nicotine products.

5. Tobacco companies do not spend tens of millions recruiting high school kids into organizations that promote their nicotine products. Drug companies and related interests do, however. In Washington State, Washington DOC, which sponsors youth anti-tobacco programs and recruits kids for "anti" activism on their Internet web site www.kickbutt.org, received grant No. 30072 in the amount of $649,967. The grant was paid by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

According to Value Line, that foundation owns 5.4% of the drug company Johnson & Johnson. That works out to about 72,600,000 shares of Johnson & Johnson common stock. Every dollar of appreciation of Johnson & Johnson common stock adds seventy million dollars plus to the assets of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Every dollar in sales of Nicotrol through the Johnson & Johnson company McNeil Consumer Products adds to the value of Johnson & Johnson, as well as adding to cash available for dividends to shareholders. How would you like to have the dividend income from 72,600,00 shares of stock, better than $60,000,000 per year?

Now, mom and dad, convince yourself that Dr. Jaffe and Washington DOC have absolutely no interest whatsoever in the economic well-being of a drug company that sells nicotine products. If you are able to believe that, then answer a simple question: where does next year's grant for Washington DOC come from?

You should also consider that the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation committed $19.5 million in 1996 to fund Tobacco Free Kids, the organization you hear so much about in the news. In 1997, the foundation committed another $20.5 million to its "Surveillance of Youth" program. A part of the surveillance program is to identify young smokers. Identify for what, future consumers for the patch, gums and inhalers?

6. Tobacco companies have not committed tens of millions to negatively label consumers of drug company products, or to vilify ex
ecutives of drug companies. I have personally tallied over $60 million committed by drug companies and related interests to directly support anti-tobacco activists, however. Portions of that $60 million are identified in 7. above.

Over $30 million of anti-tobacco grants by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, during 1996 alone, are presented in Appendix I.

7. Tobacco companies do not aggressively lobby state legislatures and HMO's to include their nicotine products as benefits under state and privately funded health plans. Drug companies do, and they have committed millions to make their nicotine patches, gums and inhalers approved products that are routinely paid for by taxpayers and health plan members.

Now, as a parent who is concerned about corporate institutions targeting your children for nicotine products, who should you be more concerned about, drug or tobacco companies?

Decide as you wish, it's your family and they're your kids. Ignore the issue if you want, that's your right. But while you ignore it, rest assured that drug companies are working on it diligently, and spending millions to get it done.

We can choose to believe that none of this matters, because we know that the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation does many other very good things. I would readily agree with that, the foundation provides hospice grants and many other positive contributions. But those contributions do not change reality: their money comes, by and large, from drug company stock and the success of Nicotrol influences money available to them.

Decisions, A Course of Action

Perhaps we can gamble with our own lives, but can we afford the risks of trusting activists financed by drug institutions when it comes to our kids? It seems to me that the prudent course is to take Dr. Benowitz at his word: he apparently sees nothing wrong with fifteen-year-olds on drug company nicotine products.

There are a few things that each of us can do, regardless of what pharmaceutical interests, tobacco companies, or members of Congress do:

First: Let's accept responsibility for discerning reality about nicotine issues and our kids. "Smoke Free" is not "Nicotine Free." Start demanding "Nicotine Free" schools, and requiring that all forms of nicotine be prohibited for teens.

Second: Let's start challenging our own assumptions and values. Are we equally opposed to teens using nicotine as we are to them smoking? If not, then a serious reassessment is in order. If we accept teen use of nicotine through the patch, gums, or inhalers, what have we accomplished? More important, why are we permissive about drug company nicotine products, but intolerant of smoking? Are we against teens smoking, or teens using nicotine in any form?

Third: We can smoke out the stealth nicotine marketing campaigns. Start asking our school boards for a list of corporate sponsors to school programs. Where a drug company shows up that also manufactures and distributes nicotine products, demand that they be equally excluded as tobacco companies are. Where D.A.R.E. receives drug company sponsorship, demand that it be stopped immediately.

Fourth: We should stop nicotine advertising in all forms on television. Watch the Nicoderm CQ and Nicotrol ads carefully. Does it seem to you that the person using the patch is the "good guy?" Do you want your child to believe that using a nicotine patch is a good thing? That is the subtle message that drug companies are sending to your kids in their television ads.

Fifth: We can start demanding truth in advertising disclosures for any presentations regarding smoking or nicotine. Demand that anti-tobacco activists state affirmatively that nicotine in patches, gums, or inhalers is equally as addicting as that found in cigarettes and snuff.

Sixth: We can start confronting anti-tobacco activists and school boards about the content of their "Smoke Free" programs. Demand that all programs campaign against teens using nicotine in any form including gums, patches and inhalers. Do not permit anti-tobacco activists the self-serving sleight-of-hand of limiting their efforts to tobacco products that compete with those manufactured by their drug company sponsors.

Better yet, demand that anti-tobacco activists be thrown out of our classrooms entirely. Parents can handle teen smoking, they have for decades. We don't need our efforts burdened by having to deal with nicotine patches as well.

Seventh: We can start asking elected representatives how many dollars they have accepted from drug companies. Every dollar from those supporting SmithKline Beecham or Johnson & Johnson is a statement that teens using nicotine is OK, it's just smoking that's bad. How may drug company dollars support tobacco legislation?

I cannot guarantee that the above steps will create a utopian society overnight. It does seem, however, that they could go a long way in solving the nicotine problem that we parents are confronted with. They're a start, and all good things begin with the first few steps.

Let's begin promoting "Nicotine Free" kids. Anti-tobacco must be anti-nicotine.

Redmond, Washington April 14, 1998