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TOBACCO-FREE KIDS: Latest Misinformation on Tobacco From FIA's Max Mosley

31 October 1997

Latest Misinformation on Tobacco Emanates From World Motorsports Leader, Max Mosley

    CARY, N.C., Oct. 31 -- THE CAMPAIGN FOR TOBACCO-FREE KIDS has
criticized highly inaccurate statements attributed to Mr. Max Mosley,
President of the International Automobile Federation (FIA).  Mosley, making
his statements to a European journalist, who asserted that increases in youth
tobacco consumption in "modern industrial countries" are a direct result of
bans on tobacco advertising in such nations.  Mosley made his statements in
response to a proposal being considered by the European Union (EU) that would
ban cigarette brand advertising and brand sponsorship of sporting events,
particularly at European auto racing events.  Similar concepts are being
discussed in the United States as part of national tobacco control
legislation.
    Mosley's statements fit the pattern of misinformation and threats from
certain motorsports leaders here in the United States.  He asserts that in
modern industrial nations where tobacco advertising bans have been
implemented, "...the consequence of a ban is not a decrease but an increase in
consumption, and it is an increase, which is noted mainly among young people."
    Regarding prevalence of smoking by European youth, after bans were
implemented in the "modern industrial countries" referenced by Mr. Mosley;
fresh information (released October, 1997) from the International Union
Against Cancer's European Union Liason Office states that, "In three out of
the four described countries(1) smoking prevalence among young people
decreased, while in one it remained stable."
    In France, a cigarette advertising ban was implemented in January 1993.
From 1992 to 1996, per capita sales of cigarettes declined 14 percent. During
the same time period, and contrary to Mr. Mosley's assertions, prevalence of
smoking among  French children aged 12 - 18 remained stable at 34 percent.  In
Finland, New Zealand and Norway, the declines in male, youth smoking
prevalence after bans were implemented in those countries were 12 percent, 2.1
percent and 15.3 percent respectively.(2)
    In the statements attributed to him, Mr. Mosley attempted to make an
analogy concerning the rise of illegal drug use and the rise in youth smoking
rates, implying that, since both are rising, advertising cannot be responsible
for the increase in smoking among youth.  In doing so, he ignores the
evidence.  A number of studies have established the effect of tobacco
marketing on kids, including a recent one which found that kids are three
times more sensitive as adults to tobacco advertising.  The EU study
referenced above found a similar effect.  Added to the weight of this evidence
is the fact that the tobacco industry spends five billion dollars per year
promoting a deadly habit that is adopted by 90 percent of its users at or
before age eighteen.
    Mr. Mosley's statements as a world leader of motorsport are particularly
disturbing and lacking in logic.  They seem to imply that companies which
promote the addiction to nicotine with billions of dollars per year be allowed
to continue to do so because drug use among youth is rising without the
benefit of advertising and marketing.  What Mr. Mosley fails to note and what
the CAMPAIGN FOR TOBACCO-FREE KIDS seeks to remind the public, motorsport
communities and the industries which support motorsport is that far more kids
use tobacco than illegal drugs.  Tobacco continues to kill more Americans than
drugs, alcohol, automobile accidents, murders, suicides and fires COMBINED.

    1 Norway, Finland, New Zealand and France
    2 Joosens, L. The effectiveness of banning advertising for tobacco
      products, UICC / ECL EU Liaison Office, October 1997

SOURCE  Campaign For Tobacco-Free Kids