Big Tobacco in Our Schools

Not content with targeting kids through ads in magazines and promotions, tobacco companies are now trying to reach kids in the schools. Philip Morris wants to buy legitimacy by funding school-based tobacco prevention programs. This sends a mixed message to young people, when the same people who are marketing tobacco to them in the outside world are sponsoring curricula in their schools.

The tobacco industry spends $5.5 billion a year in marketing and advertising tobacco: these same companies are putting only a few million into so-called
"prevention programs.”  It is easy to see which message the tobacco industry really wants kids to hear.

For more information on the battle to keep the tobacco industry out of our schools, click on the following links:

Memo: Philip Morris "Partnering" with Public Schools?

The Tobacco Industry Is Buying Our Kids' Education -- What You Can Do

Letter from the CAMPAIGN to the State Boards of Education