TY - JOUR T1 - A hard road: finding ways to reduce teen tobacco use JF - Tobacco Control JO - Tob Control SP - 1 LP - 2 DO - 10.1136/tc.9.1.1 VL - 9 IS - 1 AU - CHARYN D SUTTON Y1 - 2000/03/01 UR - http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/9/1/1.abstract N2 - In 1986, when Surgeon General C Everett Koop challenged the nation to create a smoke free society by the turn of the century, the focus was on creating a “smoke free class of 2000”—children who would go from first grade to high school without ever smoking a cigarette.1 In 1990, when the African American community opposed the introduction of Uptown Cigarettes, a brand that RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company had designed for African Americans, the battle cry was that the tobacco company was coming after black kids. That threat galvanised the African American community.2 In the mid 1990s when David Kessler, head of the US Food and Drug Administration, began his quest for approval to regulate nicotine in cigarettes, he marshalled support by calling smoking a “pediatric disease” because smoking typically begins in late childhood or early adolescence.3 The recent FDA effort to curb teen smoking has been called “ . . .the most important public health initiative of our generation”.4 It is easy to garner public support for youth focused anti-smoking projects. No one wants kids to smoke. Polls show that smokers support programmes to keep children and teens from getting hooked on cigarettes and other tobacco products.5 Even tobacco companies have climbed on the bandwagon, spending millions in anti-smoking advertising campaigns, allegedly directed at dissuading youth.6 Yet, for an issue that has such support, the scorecard is quite dismal. In 1998, more than one third of high school seniors surveyed said they had smoked a cigarette in the previous 30 days.7 In many ways, the dreams of a “smoke free class of 2000” have gone up in smoke. What happened?The easy answer is that the tobacco companies, for all their rhetoric, kept targeting children. A 1994 report found that 86% of … ER -