Que Pasa, Marlboro Man?

Imagine a room full of cowboys in training for Big Tobacco. “Venga a la tierra de Marlboro,” says a teacher. “Repeat after me.” “Come to Marlboro Country,” the cowboys respond — in Spanish, Mandarin Chinese and Swahili.

The mock language classes appear in a series of new Florida “truth” commercials now airing, that aim to raise awareness of tobacco industry practices abroad.

A second ad in the series shows tobacco company workers in Senegal, Africa taking down a Marlboro billboard in anticipation of a 1998 U.S. presidential visit. The next shot shows the workers putting the billboard back up after the President leaves.

“When the tobacco companies can’t do something in the U.S., they just go someplace else,” the commercial points out.

Some of the tobacco marketing practices now banned in the U.S. have continued to be used in foreign countries, the commercials tell teens. These practices include the mailing of promotional items to children, placing billboards near schools and advertising tobacco without warning labels.

As a result, health experts believe tobacco use is growing at alarming rates worldwide. The World Health Organization (W.H.O.) estimates that tobacco use will kill 10 million people annually by 2030.

Florida’s anti-tobacco program includes the youth-oriented “truth” advertising campaign, community health partnerships, evaluation, educational programs in schools and the Students Working Against Tobacco (SWAT) grassroots advocacy initiative. Since its inception in 1997, the program is credited with reducing teen smoking rates by 47 percent among middle school students and 31 percent among high school students. The program is funded by the $11.3 billion settlement reached with tobacco companies.

More information on the program is available online at http://www.wholetruth.com, http://www.gen-swat.com and http://www.doh.state.fl.us/tobacco.

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