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The War on Children"The base of our business is the high school student," and "Today's teenager is tomorrow's regular customer" are but two quotes among thousands of 'smoking guns' obtained in the discovery process of lawsuits against the industry. Even now, $260 billion in penalties later, few things have changed. Although smoking among teens has dropped slightly, the issue remains the same. Big tobacco knows that statistically almost no adults over the age of 21 initiate addictive smoking; therefore new customers must come from a base of teenagers.
 The big billboards are down and some of the sports promotions and giveaways have diminished as a result of the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA). Manufacturers are prohibited from advertising in youth-oriented periodicals, but somehow People Magazine, Spin Magazine, Sports Illustrated and Us, with huge youth readership, still carry spit tobacco and cigarette ads. Walk into any convenience store and count the number of banners, ads and small billboards extolling tobacco. Tobacco manufacturers are still spending over $8 billion annually to promote their products and no matter how shrill their denials, they are still targeting young people.
There is certainly still Winston Cup Racing and millions of kids watch the Marlboro logo speed around the tracks of America every weekend. In fact, tobacco use remains ubiquitous in the media and sporting events. Any kid watching Major League Baseball or Pro Rodeo sees their heroes serving as walking advertisements for spit tobacco. No teen can go to the movies regularly without seeing their favorite stars smoking and often seemingly advertising specific brands. Even television has begun to feature smoking in popular teen shows such as MTV's "Real World" and "Road Rules."7
Teens routinely proclaim that they are immune to advertising, but it is no accident that 95% of kids smoke the three most heavily advertised brands, Marlboro, Camel and Newport.8 Likewise when smoking teens are asked about their future plans, they almost uniformly say they will stop smoking within a few years. But, they cannot stop and a third of them will die from an impulsive decision they made as teens.
Tobacco: Gateway to Drug Use
In addition to health problems, there is also a compelling association between cigarette smoking and use of other drugs and alcohol. Kids who smoke are:
 three times more likely to use alcohol regularly;
eight times more likely to use marijuana; and
almost 22 times more likely to use cocaine.
Tobacco use almost always precedes illegal drug use. To be sure, some of this is a reflection of rebellious behavior patterns. However, medical studies report that part of the connection is caused by nicotine's ability to "turn on" the brain's nerve receptors to addictive substances. In nerve cells, nicotine cross-reacts with receptors for cocaine, alcohol, amphetamines and narcotics. Nicotine primes the brain for other drugs.9
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