JOSEPHINE CAMEL

A prime feature of the 1998 tobacco settlement between the states and the industry was that the very skillful marketing people employed by the tobacco companies would stop targeting children. One way they agreed to do this was by banning the use of cartoon characters – notoriously Joe Camel – from their advertising. A sensible agreement and a tacit admission that the companies understood children were attracted to the cartoonish figure.

So when you open a leading newsmagazine you no longer will see the camel in the sunglasses. You will instead find the cartoon character of a bejeweled raven-haired young woman who looks a lot like the big sister of Disney’s version of Pocahontas, and could be considered something of a glamorous role model for 12- or 13-year-old girls. And she is not, significantly, selling smelly old unfiltered Camels. She has new tobacco products, more appealing products, products that would entice a nonsmoker. One of these cigarette flavors is said by Smokeshop magazine to include “a hint of vanilla and a touch of exotic spices”; another has “a splash of citrus”; a third is a “sweet and tart” cocktail cigarette. Almost like candy.

The master settlement agreement between the states and the industry defines what constitutes a cartoon – it must use comically exaggerated features or “the attribution of human characteristics to animals, plants or other objects” or “the attribution of unnatural or extrahuman abilities, such as imperviousness to pain or injury, X-ray vision, tunneling at very high speeds or transformation.” The young woman in the ad doesn’t appear to meet any of these criteria, unless you consider her comely features unnatural, an arguable point. Perhaps her sapphire nose stud qualifies her under imperviousness to pain.

The larger issue, however, is that the ad and the products in it would be attractive to young girls, a target that is clearly off limits to the industry. The settlement is getting older and some of the fervor to keep the industry from finding new customers among kids is wearing off. This ad goes too far, and the attorneys general who agreed to the settlement should urge its removal.