
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, August 12, 1993                   TAG: 9308120196
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

HEAT'S UNDER HIP CAMEL FTC WANTS HIM OUT, BUT HE'S LOUNGING ON BILL OF RIGHTS

The Federal Trade Commission staff wants to kill the 6-year-old Joe Camel advertising campaign because the smoothly hip cartoon character has been too successful in enticing teenagers and young adults to smoke Camel cigarettes.

But agency heads are worried that such a ban could run afoul of the First Amendment. And Stuart Friedel, a former FTC lawyer who specializes in advertising law, said commercial speech is entitled to First Amendment protection unless it is false or misleading.

The FTC staff has formally recommended that the five commissioners ban the ads. If the commission follows the staff recommendation, it will start an administrative process that will likely take several years and almost definitely end in court.

The staff proposal was reported Wednesday by the Wall Street Journal and confirmed by a spokeswoman for RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp., owner of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. The spokeswoman declined to elaborate and the FTC declined to comment.

The recommendation is sure to be contested vigorously by R.J. Reynolds, which has benefited greatly from the aggressive advertising campaign's appeal to young smokers. Largely as a result of that campaign, Camel was one of the few non-discounted cigarettes to increase its market share last year.

Further, Camel now holds about one-third of all sales to youths under 18 years of age, and its market share among 18- to 24-year-olds has almost doubled since the campaign started in 1987, according to studies compiled by a coalition of health groups that filed a complaint against the Joe Camel ads with the FTC two years ago.

The coalition argued that the ads promote smoking among teens because Joe Camel cuts a glamorous figure, depicted as sexy, athletic, debonair and heroic. "This campaign represents one of the most egregious examples in recent history of tobacco advertising targeted at children," the health coalition said in its 1991 petition.

Word of the FTC staff recommendation was cheered by the American Medical Association, whose past president, John L. Clowe, said he hoped the FTC commissioners "act with great haste."

"If the tobacco industry had any shred of humanity or sense of business ethics, `Old Joe' [as the Camel is known around R.J. Reynolds] would have been set out in the desert back in 1991," Clowe said.

"If we believed for a minute that Camel advertising induces children to smoke, we would not wait for the FTC or anyone else to act. We would immediately change the campaign," Reynolds countered in a statement Wednesday.

Associated Press contributed to this report.

by CNB