TY - JOUR T1 - Lorillard's “Candy Box” ad for Newport cigarettes: is she pregnant? JF - Tobacco Control JO - Tob Control SP - iii3 LP - ii5 DO - 10.1136/tc.9.suppl_3.iii3 VL - 9 IS - suppl 3 AU - Ronald M Davis AU - Anne Landman Y1 - 2000/09/01 UR - http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/9/suppl_3/iii3.abstract N2 - One of the axioms in tobacco control is that today's outrage from the tobacco industry will be eclipsed by tomorrow's. Just when you think you've seen the worst possible transgression by the bad guys, something even worse comes along.The “outrage” in the spring of 1985 was an advertisement for Newport Lights which featured a pregnant woman, or at least a woman wholookedpregnant—very pregnant. The ad is reproduced on the cover of this journal supplement and as a figure in this essay (fig 1). Tobacco industry documents now available on the web shed light on the history of the ad.Figure 1 Lorillard's “Candy Box” ad for Newport cigarettes: does she look pregnant? Lorillard called the ad “Candy Box” because it shows a young man offering a box of candy to a young woman—a woman with a very protuberant abdomen. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), “The ad ran extensively in April, May and June [of 1985] in many national magazines, including Family Circle,Time, People,National Enquirer,Woman's Day, etc.”1 Health groups, not surprisingly, were aghast upon seeing the ad. The image “implies that it is all right for pregnant women to smoke and may be unfair and deceptive in violation of FTC regulations,” said Matthew Myers, then director of the Coalition on Smoking OR Health (and now executive director of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids).2 The Coalition and others asked the FTC to investigate. At the same time, a staff person for the US House of Representatives' subcommittee on health and the environment (then chaired by Congressman Henry Waxman of California) reported that the subcommittee would hold hearings on cigarette advertising and promotion in September or October of that year, and that the Newport ad was already on the … ER -