4-H Defends Anti-Smoking Program Financed by Tobacco Company

Anti-smoking advocates, health charities, and leaders of 4-H groups around the country are troubled

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by the National 4-H Council’s plans to use a $4.3-million grant from the nation’s biggest cigarette maker to pay for a new effort to persuade youngsters not to smoke.

Philip Morris USA, known for its Marlboro brand cigarettes, will give the council the money over the next two years to teach kids ages 10 to 14 to stay away from tobacco. The program will be introduced next month in 11 regions in eight states before it expands nationwide next year.

Officials of 4-H say the group decided to sponsor an anti-smoking campaign because tobacco use has become epidemic among young people, with more than 3,300 kids becoming regular smokers each day. They say 4-H is especially well-qualified to reach millions of young people through its lessons on how to stay healthy and other youth-development issues that are a regular feature of many 4-H programs.

But the anti-smoking program has been the subject of controversy since it was announced late last year. While no one disputes the importance of the program’s goal — to reduce smoking among youths — many people are troubled by the council’s use of money from a tobacco company to pay for an anti-smoking campaign.

Critics worry that Philip Morris could exert undue influence on the program and that the tobacco company would garner what leaders of four of the nation’s most prominent health-care and anti-smoking groups called in a letter to the council “undeserved legitimacy” by being associated with 4-H.

Some critics also worry that 4-H’s reputation might suffer because of its involvement with Philip Morris.

“If you are a youth-development organization — especially one with four H’s in its name, one standing for health — it’s not appropriate to take money from a company that makes a product that is so seriously unhealthy and that presents a serious health risk for youth,” says Gary L. Heusel, head of Nebraska’s 4-H program.

The National 4-H Council’s program is the latest battleground for a longstanding debate over whether charities should take money from tobacco companies. Because of the serious health risks associated with smoking, anti-smoking advocates argue that non-profit groups, more than other institutions, should avoid profiting from the tobacco industry, either through donations or stock earnings. During the last decade, scores of charities have sold their stock in tobacco companies, while others have chosen not to accept tobacco-company grants.

But such decisions do not come easily to charities hard-pressed to raise money. Some non-profit groups that take donations from tobacco companies say that while they recognize that they may be helping to burnish the image of the companies, such tradeoffs are part of the business of raising money from corporations. As long as the grants come with no strings attached, they say, the money — like money from any source — is simply helping the charity fulfill its mission.

Indeed, Philip Morris USA’s parent company, Philip Morris Companies, has little trouble finding recipients for its largesse. This year, the company — one of the nation’s biggest corporate donors — plans to give away $60-million in cash (The Chronicle, July 15).

Much more of the company’s money may be reaching charities in the coming years as Philip Morris USA and four other tobacco companies pay out a $206-billion settlement of a series of lawsuits filed by 46 states. Lawmakers in each state will decide how the money is spent, but at least part of it is intended to benefit health-care and tobacco-use-prevention projects. Because the money will be controlled by state legislatures, anti-smoking advocates and others have not raised concerns about the tobacco companies’ influence over the programs that might benefit.

Critics say that direct gifts from tobacco companies to charities are a different story, and officials at the National 4-H Council have had to vigorously defend their decision to accept the Philip Morris grant.

4-H leaders in as many as half the states have declined to participate in the national council’s anti-smoking program. In a letter to the council criticizing the program as “terribly shortsighted” and a potential “public relations nightmare,” a representative from California’s statewide 4-H advisory board asks: “How can anyone seriously believe Philip Morris is in the business of unselling cigarettes to youth?”

The heads of four non-profit groups — the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, the American Medical Association, and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids — have asked similar questions of the council in several letters written over the past year.

The council’s president, Richard J. Sauer, says that while in the past Philip Morris may have marketed its cigarettes to kids, his “gut instinct is that they don’t anymore.” In any case, he says: “The real issue for us in any grant — whether from Philip Morris or Ben & Jerry’s or J. C. Penney — is whether we have the independence to do quality work with rigorous evaluation and have the final say on all aspects of implementation, design, and evaluation.”

“We are not pawns to anyone, whether it’s Philip Morris or any other corporation or organization or foundation,” Mr. Sauer says. “We write the agreements. They are ironclad that we have independence.”

For its part, Philip Morris insists that the company is genuinely interested in cutting the incidence of youth smoking. Brendan J. McCormick, a company spokesman, says the 4-H grant is part of Philip Morris USA’s plan to spend $100-million this year — and possibly the same amount in years to come — on television advertisements, anti-smoking campaigns, and other efforts aimed at curbing tobacco use among young people.

“We realize we are going to have people skeptical of our efforts to reduce youth smoking,” Mr. McCormick says. “The only thing we can do is ask that our actions be judged in the long term.”

He says that Philip Morris is supporting the anti-smoking efforts not only because it is the right thing to do, but because the company wants to position itself as the most responsible manufacturer of tobacco products for adults.

“We think this is something that makes perfect sense for our business,” Mr. McCormick says.

But critics inside and outside the 4-H system still worry about the tobacco company’s involvement. They note that Philip Morris officials participated in planning meetings; that the company will, by agreement with the council, have access to all research and other information from the program; and that the company’s name may appear on the program’s materials.

“I do believe that nothing would be printed by the National 4-H Council that was not true,” says Nancy Beukema, who coordinates the county 4-H program in Marquette, Mich. “But whether the material will go far enough on the anti-smoking issue or say things that the tobacco company may not like because it is not good for business, that is the question. There’s the potential that the relationship would be too restrictive to allow for a really effective program.”

Officials at the national council say they are undaunted by the decision by some state groups not to participate in the anti-smoking program. For one thing, they say, county-run 4-H programs and other affiliated groups can decide independently of their state organizations whether or not to participate. And, they say, they had no shortage of local 4-H groups around the country vying for a piece of the grant money.

Still, says Susan W. Halbert, the program’s director, the national council is looking for ways to deal with the state leaders’ concerns. For example, she says, the council has agreed to make it possible for groups to remove Philip Morris’s name and logo from the program’s materials.

In the meantime, Manuela Irma Maldonado, a local 4-H leader from Wanblee, S.D., is simply anxious to get the new anti-smoking program started on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation, where she helped secure a $200,000, three-year grant from the national council.

“My feeling is that adults can sit around bickering on things like this, and in the end who loses out?” she asks. “The kids.”