Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 11, 1991 TAG: 9104110368
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
He said Americans should send a message to those "who would encourage our children to use addictive substances which will ruin their health and send them to an early grave."
Sullivan did not use the word "boycott," but staff members said that was only because he feared it would sound "coercive." He specifically asked that owners of all public and private arenas and parks stop letting their complexes be used for sporting events sponsored by tobacco companies and he asked sports promoters to stop accepting tobacco companies as sponsors.
A spokesman for the department, Campbell Gardett, said Sullivan believed that fans should "recognize that when a sporting event is sponsored by a tobacco company that it is being used to promote tobacco use and decide whether they want to support that kind of promotion."
It was one of the strongest attacks a Cabinet member has ever made on an American product, although Sullivan, an ardent foe of smoking, has condemned cigarette marketing efforts directed specifically at women and blacks.
It was not immediately clear what effect his remarks would have or how much tobacco companies spend on sports events, but the amount has been steadily increasing since 1971, when cigarette advertising was banned from radio and television.
Sullivan asserted, "If the tobacco companies will not adhere to this country's strong philosophy of voluntary corporate responsibility, then it is up to our citizens to provide the incentive in the only language they appear to understand - the language of money."
Athena Mueller, general counsel with a group called Action on Smoking and Health, said the statement reinforced the point that there was something sinister in the way the tobacco companies linked the "healthy, sporting life with tobacco use and its diseases."
But Nathaniel Walker, director of public relations for RJR Sports Marketing, said: "I think our activities are accepted by people who attend these events. These sports are better today because of some of our money that has gone into them."
Walker Merryman, vice president of the Tobacco Institute, a trade group, said Sullivan's remarks were "nothing new from the secretary, although this time he may have ratcheted up the rhetoric a notch or two."
"Apparently he has overlooked the fact that tobacco products remain legal in this country," Merryman said. "Those who manufacturer them have a right to promote them, and they do so at events designed for adult audiences."
by CNB