FDA Targets Teens With New Anti-Smoking Effort

NACS Online
December 11, 2013

The agency will launch an ambitious campaign early in 2014 aimed at stopping teens from smoking.

​WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will commence an unprecedented effort to stop teens from picking up the smoking habit early in 2014, The Washington Post reports. The new campaign comes 50 years after the U.S. surgeon general announced smoking could kill you.

Spread out over five years, the data-heavy initiative will rack up a $600 million bill that tobacco firms will fund because of a 2009 law. The anti-smoking messages will be tailored to certain groups of teens, from rural kids to gay and lesbian nightclub goers. The subset of teens between the ages of 12 and 17 will also be targeted.

“It’s the federal government going to ad firms of the quality and ability that the tobacco industry has always used,” said Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. “They’re ensuring that the media designed to educate and reach at-risk young people is of the same quality that the tobacco industry has used to attract them.”

Mitch Zeller, who leads the agency’s Center for Tobacco Products, said this is the first anti-smoking promotion from the federal government specifically designed to reach youngsters. “Once they become regular smokers or regular tobacco users, then it’s the progression to addiction, disease and premature death,” he said. “We have a responsibility … to reduce the death and disease toll from tobacco use. That includes educating kids about the harms of tobacco use in an effective way, in a way that will reach them.”

In 2012, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ran the first federally funded anti-smoking initiative to reach across the country, but that campaign tried to get current smokers to quit. Overall, the FDA has earmarked $300 million for anti-smoking messages in 2014 and 2015.