See for yourself: The spiked PSA
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This video (QuickTime, 3.2 Mb) is a anti-smoking public service announcement that aired in California until it was pulled by governor Pete Wilson.
In the May/June issue, Mother Jones Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Klein writes:
Dr. [David] Kessler's imminent ruling that nicotine is a drug will up the ante for tobacco. The industry is already gearing up its disinformation campaign to label opponents un-American health nazis who want "big government" to curtail natural freedoms. But we're not calling for prohibition. Adults have a choice whether to smoke. Yet even most adult smokers want curbs on tobacco marketing so that it won't hook a new generation.
The tobacco industry knows which curbs work and which don't. The most effective anti-smoking campaigns expose Big Tobacco's cynical manipulation of a public it deems gullible. Such ads had a considerable effect in California until they were yanked from the airwaves by one of tobacco's stealth allies, Gov. Pete Wilson. He and the industry prefer finger-wagging ads that encourage adults to call an 800 number if they see youngsters buying cigarettes. The first type of campaign tells kids they're suckers if they light up; the second subtly encourages them to rebel.
