Opinion> Hillary Clinton> Talking It Over 1996 07 16

	1 Jan 2008 Talking It Over EDITORS NOTE: The following column is the first syndicated column written by Hillary Clinton for Creators Syndicate.… Read More.
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Talking It Over

My late mother-in-law was a chain smoker for most of her life. Whenever she came to visit us at the Governor's Mansion in Little Rock, she always had to go outside to smoke.

After lighting up one day, she asked Chelsea, who was almost 8, what she wanted for her birthday. "I want you to quit smoking," Chelsea said.

That simple plea from a granddaughter helped end a 48-year addiction to cigarettes. My mother-in-law stopped smoking for good on Chelsea's birthday in 1988.

Children have always been the most persuasive voices in convincing adults to give up cigarettes. I don't think I've ever met a child who hasn't been blunt about his or her aversion to smoke. Consider the fifth-grader who wrote in a letter to my daughter: "I hate smoking. I can't even be around smoke. I cough and choke."

Yet somehow between childhood and adolescence, too many young people forget their better instincts and begin smoking. Adolescents account for the purchase of some 500 million packs of cigarettes a year. On any given day, 3,000 young people become regular smokers. And nearly 1,000 of them will die as a result of their addiction.

Recently, there has been renewed debate over whether tobacco is addictive. I think most of us agree that it is, and we appreciate those loud warnings that Dr. C. Everett Koop, the Surgeon General from 1981 to 1989, gave us when he talked about the dangers of smoking.

Yet while many adults — elementary-school teachers and parents, especially — are working to combat the lure of smoking, still others are getting children hooked for life.

Consider this: The Weekly Reader, a popular children's magazine, published articles on smoking between 1989 and 1994 that spread tobacco-industry views and offered limited information about the health effects of smoking, according to a study by a medical professor at the University of California at San Francisco.

It turns out that The Weekly Reader is owned by the same company that at the time owned RJR Nabisco, the country's second-largest maker of cigarettes.

Another study has shown that Joe Camel, the cartoon mascot of Camel cigarettes, is now as recognizable to 6-year-olds as Mickey Mouse.

Joe is everywhere — on jackets, baseball caps, gym bags, tank tops. No wonder Camel is the most familiar cigarette brand among 12- to 17-year-olds.

Our children can't even watch their favorite sporting events without seeing the logo of a cigarette brand on a stadium wall or in the background of the television screen. Movies today are filled with characters reaching for a cigarette — or worse, marijuana, the next step for some kids who get hooked on tobacco. Last fall, for example, I was shocked when my mother and I watched two "family" movies in which the heroines casually smoked marijuana.

What is clear is that commercial interests — and corporate greed — are working against our children.

If children can get through their adolescent years without smoking, chances are, they won't light up as adults. And they are less likely to fall down the slippery slope that begins with cigarettes and leads to illegal drugs and other destructive addictions and behaviors.

To help reduce smoking among young people, the Clinton administration has proposed regulations that, if put into effect, would allow cigarettes to be sold only in face-to-face transactions with adults. Tobacco billboards would be prohibited within 1,000 feet of schools and playgrounds. Other billboards and magazines with significant youth readerships could only display black and white, text-only advertising.

Companies would not be allowed to sell or give away products such as hats bearing a cigarette logo or name. Brand names such as Virginia Slims or Winston could not sponsor sporting events (although those events could be sponsored in the corporate name). And the tobacco industry would fund a public education campaign about the dangers children face from smoking.

Whether or not these regulations go into effect, we need to be more vigilant as a society about the social costs of business decisions and how they influence our children.

While we all want to encourage competition and innovation — hallmarks of American capitalism — we must strike the right balance between the freedom businesses need to make profits, and the preservation of family and community values. We can't afford to sacrifice either one.