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New Tobacco Marketing
RALEIGH, NC - After years of bad press, the tobacco industry has launched a product to the consumer market aimed at a new demographic. Putting financial issues aside, I will try to discuss the health benefits of big tobacco's new product.
With the 6 to 12 year-old age group in mind, Philip Morris has entered the breakfast arena with their new flavored tobaccos. Teaming up with cereal giant General Mills, the new General Morris division is bringing its smooth, smooth taste to the breakfast table.
Sporting colorful boxes and fancy names like Count Choke-u-la, Coco-Puffs, and Lucky Strike Charms, these breakfast smokes are sweeping the nation. All of these products contain a blend of vitamins, minerals and nicotine. As with their cereal predecesors, they are only considered part of a healthy breakfast, though with advances in vitamin and tar infusion methods, GM hopes to replace morning meals altogether.
"This is a breakthrough in nutrition", says lead GM researcher C.A. Nertolli. "Many American children are forced to have breakfast on the run. This will save time, spills, and in the long run make our kids healthier".
When asked about the addictive properties of nicotine, Nertolli added, "I can think of worse things to be addicted to than a good breakfast".
Even though each of these children's cigarettes contains the same nutritional value as a bowl of cereal, some children are up to 7, 8, even 9 bowls a morning. These numbers continue to rise and schools are having a problem with "breakfast in the boys' room".
Tobacco watchdogs at www.thetruth.com say that this is just another way to hook the public on a dangerous product. "Big tobacco has always pushed their wares towards kids", says the Truth's Dewey Halgant. "With chocolate and fruit flavors and characters like the Trix Habit on their packages they're sure to addict the whole nation".
So the debate goes on - nutrition versus a hacking breakfast cough. In the meantime, General Morris plans on expanding this program to other meals, and have contacted many schools across the nation to be the sole supplier of their school lunch programs.
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| ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Hans Dikefinger is research director of Massachusetts General Hospital Harvard. His column in Medical Oddities Monthly has been published for 17 years and he also plays a doctor on TV, on the hit soap opera "All My Patients". |
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