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Excerpts from STOREFRONT TOBACCO ADS SAID TO TARGET STUDENTS

By Peter J. Howe, Boston Globe [09/11/98]

Massachusetts public health officials yesterday released a new statewide survey contending that convenience stores hawk cigarettes more aggressively near schools, but a top industry leader called the charge ''absurd'' and officials acknowledged possible flaws in the study.

Checking 3,000 retail storefronts in 125 cities and towns, Department of Public Health volunteers found that more than half of storefront ads were for tobacco products.

Health officials asserted that stores located within 1,000 feet of a school were more likely to have tobacco ads than those more than 1,000 feet away. ''I'm sure it's part of an industry strategy to go to these areas,'' health commissioner Dr. Howard Koh said.

However, health department spokesman Mark Leccese acknowledged that what the report actually counted was not how many stores near schools carry tobacco advertising, but the total percentage of storefront signs advertising tobacco near schools - which could be skewed by one store near a school with many signs.

Also, the difference might be considered statistically insignificant. A total of 54.4 percent of the storefront ads were for tobacco at stores within 1,000 feet of a school, compared to 50.0 percent at stores farther away, Leccese said.

The report also charges that ''brands smoked by youth'' were the most heavily advertised at stores, accounting for two of three tobacco ads. However, the four brands cited - Marlboro, Camel, Newport and Winston - accounted in 1997 for at least 62 percent of premium cigarettes sold, according to the trade publication US Distribution Journal, suggesting it could be expected they would be heavily advertised to adult smokers.

But Koh said the sheer preponderance of tobacco ads makes some public health officials think they should be banned at stores.

Over the past five years, the percentage of stores refusing to sell cigarettes to minors sent in as testers by health boards and law-enforcement agencies has soared from under 40 percent to 75 or 80 percent, according to figures Koh supported.

''I view these advertisements not only as a form of visual pollution, but a form of violence because they are an attempt to get our kids to commit slow suicide'' by smoking, Koh said.

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