Tobacco Ads without Cartoons – Right Law

Published on May 25, 2009 8:23 AM

In Philadelphia, a new anti-smoking legislation doesn’t permit to use cartoons for to sell cigarettes to minors. For example in Rolling Stone magazine, Camel advertisement was coupled with pictures promoting rock music.

Tom Corbett, a spokesman for Pennsylvania Attorney General, said that the judicial decision is a full victory over R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., and the first decision in lawsuits filed by lawyers in nine states that ordered monetary damages.

Judge William J. Manfredi ordered R.J. Reynolds Tobacco to pay $302,000 or run a full-page anti-smoking advertisement in a Rolling Stone edition that is spread in Pennsylvania, because it violated its promise not to sell cigarettes to children. Even though the Rolling Stone magazine produced and placed illustrations with cartoons but the cigarette manufacturer should have avoided their placement next to a Camel ad.

Even in 1998, an important decision between 46 states and the Tobacco Industry which included a supply against using cartoons in cigarettes advertisements for to prevent them from appealing to minors.

R.J. Reynolds' protection has proved more successful in other states. For example, judges in Maine and Washington ruled in favor of the tobacco company.

A California judge found that R.J. Reynolds violated the Master Settlement Agreement, but was not responsible for the ad placement, while an Ohio judge found the opposite.
Neither judge ordered damages, but the company is appealing both decisions, said a spokesman.

R.J. Reynolds and other cigarettes makers agreed to drop cartoon characters from cigs advertisements in a settlement with 45 states and Washington too.