European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - March 4, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 columns the stars and Stripe George will tobacco ads can be hazardous to your health while you read this column three americans will die of smoking related illnesses. Not surprising considering that in 1986 the surgeon general reported among other horrific things benzene concentrations in cigarettes up to 2,000 times greater than the amounts that caused Perrier water to be pulled from markets worldwide. What is surprising and will flab Tergast future generations is that Public policy is so flaccid regarding the nation s Foremost cause of preventable death. Policy May become More muscular in the aftermath of an anomalous controversy one concerning a major corporations attempts to Market in a Normal Way a Legal indeed subsidized product. The product is addictive 80 percent of adults using it want to quit two thirds have tried and failed sickening and often lethal when used As it is intended to be used. Today a subject is cigarettes and the task not exactly chivalric is one of protecting a virile  they have various attributes but the one most Lovely to . Reynolds tobacco co. Is that they Are minimally educated. According Toa company marketing memo virile females Are 18 to 20, have no education beyond High school work in entry level service or factory jobs Wear jeans and knit tops watch a pros Canna a enjoy such events As motorcycle races tractor pulls and monster truck competitions. Virile females Are the Market segment targeted by the new Brand Dakota which May be promoted by Dakota sponsored a nights of the living hunks and male strip shows. Reynolds recently retreated from a plan to test Market a Brand Uptown targeted at Blacks in inner cities a group that already smokes much More than Whites. Billboards hawking cigarettes a advertisements that cannot be turned off or otherwise avoided a Are concentrated most heavily in inner cities tobacco companies bring a Chilly clarity to the task of coping with a shrinking Market. They use sophisticated marketing like a snipers Rifle drawing beads on the most vulnerable manipulable americans. The rate of smoking is two and a William Safire half times As High among americans who have not finished High school As among College graduates. America pays $52 billion annually a $221 per american a in health care insurance costs and lost productivity because of tobacco which every year kills More americans than world War ii did. The toll from tobacco is far higher than from cocaine crack and heroin combined. One thousand deaths a Day one every 90 seconds. If an Industrial Accident killed everyone in the Augusta ga., metropolitan area the nation would be horrified. That is the scale of the annual tobacco disaster. Sen. Edward Kennedy d-mass., chaired a spirited recent hearing that considered among other Good ideas a proposal by sen. Bill Bradley d-n.j., to deny tax deductions for tobacco advertising a $2.5 billion of it annually. The companies spending $6.9 million a Day on advertising and promotions cheekily claim it is All aimed at winning Market shares and none of it is aimed at children. But about half of All smokers Start by the time they Are 15 few Start after 21. Only 10 percent of smokers switch brands in a year. Death and intelligence Cost the cigarette companies 6,000 customers a Day that Many new smokers must be found daily to keep the companies running in place. Cigarette advertising plays upon teenagers desire for autonomy and anxiety about social acceptance and sexual allure. If just 3 percent of cigarette sales Are to underage children that Market segment spends $1 billion giving the companies $ 150 million in profits. New smokers Are disproportionately women and minorities. Forty years ago just 3 percent of women with cancer had lung cancer. Now 20 percent do. You say cigarette advertising is off television look again. Cigarette signs Are in most of the key television camera sight lines in sports Arenas and stadiums. On no cd a 93-minute telecast of the 1989 Marlboro grand prix there were 4,997 images of Marlboro signs 519 of Marlboro billboards and 249 of the Marlboro car. The Brand name was visible 46 of the 93 minutes a 49 percent of the telecast. Targeted marketing a common tactic is now considered disgusting when the targeted group is picked because it is badly educated and informed and hence manipulable and the product being marketed is injurious. But senior executives who set the tobacco companies marketing strategies do not have daughters who fit the a virile female profile. One wonders do the executives daughters smoke if so Are the executives pleased if so Are they not strange parents Washington Post writers group it a Tough not to gloat Over Ortega a defeat As a responsible pundit i agree with the horde of stability Loving statesmen and sober sided seers that it would be counterproductive even dangerously provocative to jeer a nyah nyah and gloat at the defeat of the overconfident sandinista. Nor would it be gracious to Crow i told you so at the Victory of the democratic political leaders whose election the contrast Long struggle made possible. Noble restraint is not an easy pose to strike. Even As 1 write these words a harsh snide voice that i am ashamed to be associated with but one that seems to have taken control of a Small portion of my brain is straining to make itself heard. Did you catch Peter Jennings admission that the Abc news Washington Post poll was a terribly wrong a heh heh heh. Did you see him blame the nicaraguan people for not telling his pollsters the truth of did i get a kick out of that him with his perfect Spanish pronunciation. But now is the time to set aside All recriminations. If the dovish left in the United states wants to claim that this proves the sandinista were pussycats All along and that Only the fear of continued civil War and the . Trade embargo caused the voters to throw them out at the first Opportunity i moderately reply a let us not insult the nicaraguan people by accusing them of voting their stomachs and not their ideals. Yeah look at All them Contra haters in the Congress squirm. For years they be been saying our pressure was useless the Money to support the contras was wasted. Now they say that because our pressure worked the election Wasny to really fair. Hah lets give credit where its due to the new soviet Union for urging free elections As secretly agreed at Malta and to the new Daniel Ortega for being a Man of his word in holding the elections and for being a real sport about transferring Power. That a hardly the work of an evil Empire or. Gloat or of a tin pot dictator. Isnit it delightful to see the other Side coming apart the russians Are hot to get our help so they Tell their clients a Stop annoying the Yankees give Mem an election you la dominate the Media a and Ortega does what he a told As usual. He did no to figure How much his own people wanted to get rid of him. Heh. Now that the War is Over All people of Good will agree that the first step is to disband the contras. Jimmy Carter who seems to be planning to run for president of Nicaragua himself got president elect Violeta Chamorro to ask for that first thing and All commentators joined in this Call for unilateral disarmament. The War in Nicaragua is Over the cold War is Over everybody relax. Or. Gloat that a absurd ungenerous and out of touch with the global zeitgeist. And How do you suppose the sandinista would justify a coup easily. First disband the contras then arrange for a massacre and declare it the work of a right Wing death squads a then Daniel Ortega Steps aside to let his brother take Over with the army and Tomas Borge with his 10,000 Interior ministry goons. I want to apologize to my readers for the intrusion into this space of such odious thinking. I am now taking a option to repress him. There. Whew obviously we responsible must take note of Ortega a threat that a if they choose not to demobilize then i will have to take other  before hailing him As a hero we must find out Tow serious is his demand that the new government continue a having the Bank and natural resources in state hands Ana to a a respect the sandinista army and Interior ministry. We must let Dona Violeta do it her Way but assume that the contras will disband concurrent with the Raduc Tion of the huge nicaraguan army and Interior police. The . Should finance the contrast peaceful reentry for we owe them much for bearing the Brunt of the fight against communist subversion of this hemisphere. If we Are reimbursed by sandinista fund found in Swiss Banks All the better. M above All assure everyone there were no losers. No snickering no rubbing it in no a Arigh you Wanna see my tape of Jennings squirming listen to my new slogan a a Down with the contras. Because the opposition is in and the Ortega boys an it their gang of thugs Are the contras now. Heh heh Hen. New York times news service