Teenage Sexuality
Speaker: William Novelli (click here for biography)
Soap Summit 1

Transcript of Proceedings
October 18, 1997

SONNY FOX: Bill Novelli is a man who heads up the Campaign for Tobacco Free-Kids in this country. Among other things he did was to start a company called Porter Novelli, which still exists, and is the fourth largest public relations group in the country. Bill has left it now to pursue his other desires, which is to work on the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. He has been part of the Care organization. He has led a wonderful life of public service. We are indeed fortunate he has accepted our invitation to come speak today before we go back into session about this new scourge. Without further ado, because I don't have time for a lot of ado. Bill Novelli.

AUDIENCE: [APPLAUSE]

BILL NOVELLI: Sonny, thank you for that wonderful ado. The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids is two years old, and when I started it two years ago there was a little blurb saying that I was starting this thing up. A few weeks later I got a call from a friend of mine who was at a PR agency who did work for a big tobacco company. He said, "Bill," he said, "You know they're doing a dossier on you?" I said, "Really?" And he said, "They're asking every kind of question about you, but the principal question they're asking is, are you competent? Can you hurt them?" I said, "Well, what did you say, Rob?" And he said, "You don't have to worry about a thing. I told them you were totally incompetent."

AUDIENCE: [LAUGHTER]

BILL NOVELLI: So I just want you to know who you're hearing from today, a totally incompetent person. Now, there are an awful lot of people in this room who are storytellers. And I thought, what can I do to help you in your storytelling, so my idea is to tell you the story of tobacco in America at the end of the 20th century.

We need to do a little bit of scene setting, so let me say that smoking among high school seniors in this country is at a 17 year high. Since 1991, smoking among 8th and 10th graders has gone up 50%. 45% of white teen boys, 45% report past month smoking behavior. 20% of boys in grades 9-12 report past month smokeless tobacco behavior. They say, so what? I mean, look at all the other things that kids do. Well, the so what is that they grow up to be dead. They start as kids. About 90% of all adult smokers in this country began smoking as kids. There are about 47 to 50 million adult smokers in the United States. There are 5 million teenagers walking around toady. These are the kids who we all know. We see them in the cars, we see them in schools, we see them at the malls. 5 million of these kids according to CDC are going to die painful premature deaths from tobacco unless we turn this thing around. Upwards of 450,000 people in this country a year die if you take smoking and also secondhand smoke, put them together, it's close to 450,000 people a year die.

We say to ourselves, well, why do kids smoke? Nobody knows. It's not perfectly quantified, but there's some pretty good ideas. They smoke because of peer pressure, we all know that. They smoke because of adult role models, the kind of thing that others have been talking about here at the summit. They smoke because they want to be rebellious. They smoke because they want to be grownups. They smoke, especially girls, especially white teens, because they want to stay thin, or be thin. And they smoke because of tobacco marketing. Tobacco companies spend about 5 billion dollars a year in this country marketing their products. About 85% of all the kids who smoke, smoke one of the three most heavily advertised brands. They are Marlboro, the big one, Camel, and Newport. Now, there's this little problem called addiction. Lord Nicotine has a very tight grip. Most kids say they'd want to quit when they hit about 17 or 18 years old. But most kids can't quit. Now, 25% of all adults smoke. That's where that 47 to 50 million adults came from. That's a flatline. It's not going down as it was in the past decade. And spit tobacco users are getting younger and younger. You can see some role models for spit tobacco if you watch the World Series tonight.

But what kind of messages can you direct to kids to get them not to smoke? Here again, it's not perfect, it's not quantified, there's not silver bullet or magic formula. One message, and you'll see this in the California campaign, is that the industry is playing you for a sucker. That seems to have some impact on kids. They don't like being treated that way. Secondly, the issue of secondhand smoke. Kids do resonate to the idea that your smoking is hurting other people including your friends. A lot of people try to use fear. It's a questionable tactic. A lot of people try to bombard kids with facts. If you tell a 13 year old that he or she is going to die when they're 50, it doesn't really resonate terribly well.

I'm here to tell you that tobacco is the grand daddy of all social and health problems. Now, I want to tell you something that really is interesting. And that is, that we are at the most important, most exciting moment in the history of the American tobacco. After decades of really smooth lobbying, smart lawyering, and in your face marketing, the tobacco industry has come to the negotiating table to seek fundamental changes. And we have to say to ourselves, why? Why are they doing this? They've never paid out a dime in a court case in this country. They still have lots of clout in congress. Why are they doing this? Well, we can speculate. You can't get inside their heads. They tell us why, but they aren't totally trustworthy. It appears to be the following reasons. Number one, the FDA jurisdiction over tobacco, thanks to a hero, a guy named David Kessler. This had sort of put the handwriting on the wall. Now that's being contested in a federal court, but that really was a big, profound boom. Secondly, some innovative legal theories. There were theories that were brought about by attorneys general in about 40 states, led by a guy named Mike Moore, the attorney general of Mississippi, and the theory goes like this. If our states have to pay out all these Medicaid costs to people who get sick smoking, the state of Mississippi, the state of New York, the state of Florida never smoked a cigarette. So you, the tobacco industry, you owe us money in return, billions and billions of dollars. And these state suits scared the hell out of the tobacco industry.

And then there are public health people, the anti-tobacco advocates. I place among them the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids because we've been attacking the industry as hard as we can. And what's happened is that all these attacks on the industry have really backed them into a corner, made them into a kind of a pariah industry. And as a CEO of RJR Nabisco said, "You can't continue to be an outlaw industry." They had to do something about it. Then, of course, in a kind of perverse way, the industry helped us. They did too good a job marketing to kids. And we all know Joe Camel, who really became a symbol, a kind of epitome, of in-your-face, let's see you do something about it marketing. So, last April, tough negotiations began between the attorneys general in this country, and the tobacco industry with a few public health people sprinkled in. Day one, April 3rd, 1997, CEOs of Philip Morris and RJR came to the table with their phalanx of lawyers came across, our person who was there, our general counsel, a guy named Matt Meyers. Later we brought in a wonderful man, a physician from the American Medical Association, he's also on our board, his name is Lonnie Bristol, he's from San Francisco. And so Matt and Lonnie became the public people, and I was in part of the negotiations. The CEOs came to say, hey, we mean business. This time you can trust us, we really mean business. They too, their lawyers brought the idea of criminal liability. Would you be willing to discuss immunity because the justice department has been investigating. The attorneys general said, not a chance. So that was off the table. And so the negotiations continued from April 3rd to June 20th. They broke down four different times. There was fighting among the administra-tion representatives. There was fighting between the environmentalists and us, there was fighting within the tobacco industry, there was fighting across the table. The Wall Street Journal found about it, broke the story in mid-April, and then all hell broke loose. Every day they covered it like a boxing match, blow by blow. One day we brought one of the tobacco industry lawyers to a secret meeting in Atlanta where we had the American Cancer Society leadership and the American Heart Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians here, this guy flew down in a corporate jet, he came in and he said, "We're sorry for all the stuff we did in the past. We really mean to reform. We want you to understand this." You have all these docs and these other people sitting across the table looking at him like, I know, that he is absolutely a bald faced liar. So he flew away in his corporate jet, and the negotiations continued. Then on the last day, on June 20th, we had a press conference. And Lonnie and Matt and I went to the press conference at a Hotel in Washington. Here was the anti-tobacco group in it's room, and the tobacco industry in it's room, and about 250 media people waiting with a line of cameras that stretched across the street. And I said hey, you know, what's going on? Why are we late going into the press conference? A spokesman said, "There ain't going to be any press conference. 'Cause one of the tobacco companies, Brown and Williamson, which is a subsidiary of British American Tobacco, refuses to drop a lawsuit against one of its whistle blowers, a guy named Jeffery Wygant. And we ain't leaving any prisoners on the beach." So there was a two hour standoff 'till B&W, Brown and Williamson, agreed to drop the suit, we walked out and had the press conference. That was June 20th this year.

Now what's in it? First of all, there are 368.5 billion dollars in it. That's with a "B." Second, there are a whole lot of really important public health officials tightening up sales at retail with national licensing program. Driving down tobacco marketing, which they would voluntarily do, so there's no first amendment issue here to worry about. Getting rid of all human and character cartoon figures in their advertising. Tough penalties which they would have to pay if smoking didn't go down very substantially among the kids. They had a whole host of other really important public health provisions, including their total acceptance of FDA jurisdiction and 300 million dollars a year to pay for it. All told, there would be two and a half billion dollars a year in these public health provisions for us to mm this thing around. And there would also be other monies as well, other things, including tort cases. Now, they would have to get something as well, and what they would get is the ability to pay and get out of punitive damages past wrongdoing. Also, an end to the state suits which they would settle with the attorneys general. An end to class action suits and aggregating lawsuits, and an annual cap of four to five billion dollars on what they would have to pay out. The immediate response essentially was good try, but not good enough. C. Everett Koop, David Kessler, The White House, a lot of advocates, a lot of different people weighed in and said we want more. So the White House set up a task force headed by Donna Shalala and a domestic policy advisor named Bruce Reed to study this thing, and to see what the President should do about it. Then, a month ago, after three months of study, the President had a meeting in the Oval Office. Several of the Administration were there, members of congress, cabinet members, some of us from the public health community, nobody from the tobacco industry, and Clinton made the deal tougher. He made the FDA oversight tougher, made the price that would have to be, paid per pack tougher, and he also made the penalties that the industry would have to pay tougher. Then, most importantly, he called on congress. He said, "I want to see national comprehensive legislation enacted to get this thing done." Now, the public also wants this to happen.

We just did a poll not long ago, and I won't give you all the data in the interest of time, but 87% of the people in this country are concerned about tobacco use and kids as a public health issue. 73% agree that a national tobacco policy is important to help parents discourage kids from smoking. 67% believe that a national tobacco policy is likely to reduce tobacco use by kids. So we've got a very strong base of public opinion upon which to go. There is still a lot of disagreement, and there's still a lot of opposition. There are people who say, don't trust these bastards. We aren't trusting the tobacco industry, this is a deal with the devil. There are other people who say don't trust the congress. There are people who say, hey, we don't need to give the tobacco industry anything. We can beat them in court. They're on their knees. They're on the ropes. There are people who say, no, we can beat them in congress. We'll pass a $1.50 tobacco tax over their dead bodies, then we'll put that money into public health. They don't have to have any liability protection. And then there are people who just on principle say there shouldn't be any liability protection for these people. Then there are the trial lawyers who say there shouldn't be any liability protection. But nearly all major public health organizations and the Clinton administration, and Koop, and Kessler, and many congressional leaders, seem to have concluded at this point that we want those public health provisions, and we're willing to give up something in terms of liability protection in return.

Now, with all this, I would estimate that this comprehensive national legislation has only about a 50/50 chance. We've got to say to ourselves, how can this be? With the public health community behind it, the tobacco industry wants it, the President wants it, why is it so hard to get? Well, there are many answers. Republican leadership doesn't trust Clinton. They think he's going to use this as a political football and he's going to pull the rug out from under them at the appropriate moment. Nobody wants to go first. You have a congressman who's been fairly called the congressman from Philip Morris who leads the Conyer's committee in the house saying, where's the bill? And the Clinton people say, we're not giving you a bill. So nobody wants to go first. It's like a standoff. Lobbyists are swarming everywhere. You can't throw a rock in Washington without hitting a lobbyist who's working on this program. $368 billion has attracted virtually every special interest in the country. They're homing in on this money. There's ideological opposition on both sides. There are great characters in this. Tobacco lawyers. They're very smooth, and they're very smart, and I don't know why, but I think 62% wears suspenders. I'm not sure what it means.

There are the state attorney generals. It was Mike Moore, the guy who started all this. He's a very good guy, but Mike Moore can't abide Washington, and every time he testifies, he tweaks congress. Now, if you wanted to get somewhere in Washington, you don't start it off by rubbing congress' nose in something. Or we'll say to them, look, you've had 40 years to do something, now we attorney generals are giving you a package, let's pass it. And you can see their faces and their jaws tighten up there on the bench, around the hearing room. The other thing he's got this terrific twang, and he always keeps saying, I'm proud of old Mississippi. And then there's another person who's an attorney general named Christine Gregor. She's from Washington state, and she's tough, and she's no nonsense, and all during the negotiations with the tobacco industry it was her mother who spoke. "My mother would say" and these tobacco guys would write it down and, you know, negotiations would go through. You know, these attorney generals are somewhat naive and somewhat disillusioned about how Washington works, I can tell you that.

Then there are the class action lawyers. These are great characters. A lot of them are rotund and they give you big belly hugs when they meet you, and they got the nickname the Girth Brothers during the negotiations. The President's brother-in-law, Hugh Rodham is among them. And then there is the news media, bloodhounds. These people are smart, they're perceptive, and they're absolutely relentless. Then there are the anti-tobacco lobbyists, I call them guerilla fighters. For years, they've vented their rage against the tobacco industry. Now they're turning a lot of that rage on us, those of us in the public health sector who want to see this legislation. A number of books are being written about this, one of them actually just came out. I think there will be some made for TV movies, and I don't know, maybe some soap operas. I think the plot has dollars, it has moral dilemmas, it has good, and it has evil. I haven't seen any sex, I haven't seen any violence, but stay tuned.

Now, as sub-plots, Mississippi settled it's case with the industry. 3.3 billion dollars. As Mike said, "I'm proud of old Mississippi." Flight attendants just settled a few days ago. What did they get? They got 49 million dollars for their lawyers, 300 million dollars to study the effects of secondhand smoke, and nothing for these women and men. This is a drama that has, at this point, no ending. A good bit of it is going to play out over the next four to six months. Meanwhile, 3,000 kids become regular smokers every day. That's 361,000 American kids since the June 20th agreement. And over 100,000 of those kids are going to die an early death. I'm talking about boys and girls, kids from every ethnicity, every color, every social class in the country.

So, as we leave the 20th century, we have the opportunity to change this national environment so that tobacco is not seen as an everyday part of American life. We have a chance to put in place policies and the programs and the resources, and have tobacco industry compliance. There's plenty of monitoring because, I said earlier, you can't trust them. Drive down youth smoking. Maybe we'll fail. Maybe we'll lose this chance. Maybe there won't be any comprehensive legislation. Maybe it'll be back to trench warfare. As this unfolds, though, there are millions of human interest stories out there that are just spinning out across the country. There's a guy who sued his wife of 30 plus years because she wouldn't quit smoking. He said he loved her and he didn't want to lose her. She was mad as hell at first, but then she quit, and they want home hand in hand from the courtroom having settled the case. There's a woman who wrote a newspaper article last week in defense of herself and other smokers. One argument she put forth was this, and I'm quoting, she said, "Smokers are cheap dates, 'cause we go home early. We tend to be out of the world before social security pays us back, and before costly geriatric illness nabs us." Then there are the nine casino dealers who recently filed suit in Reno against the tobacco companies about the addictive nature of nicotine and the ill heath effects of breathing secondhand smoke. These guys are really rolling the dice on this. There's a mother who refused to send her daughter to college, unless the young woman would quit smoking. As the mother put it, "I'm damned if I'm going to invest my hard earned in someone with such a short future." There, there is a Kansas attorney general, maybe you know her. Do you know Rhonda Ward? She tells a story about how they were tightening up youth smoking in Kansas, and they were increasing the fines retailers to get in comply. One retailer was nabbed three times, got a huge fine, and she said, "It didn't matter at all to me that he was my former husband."

AUDIENCE: [LAUGHTER]

BILL NOVELLI: Any questions?

QUESTION: What about cigarette manufacturers using cartoon characters and sexy women to sell cigarettes to kids?

BILL NOVELLI: R.J. Reynolds put the very cool, very hip Joe Camel out to pasture or out to stud, I'm not sure which, and they replaced Joe Camel with sultry young women in their advertising. They've got this ad with this young vamp sitting at the bar with her eye make-up slightly smudged holding a cigarette and the tag line says, "What you're looking for." Now, as we reach the end of the century one thing remains true about the tobacco wars here in America and around the world. That is that nicotine and money are very addictive. The thing about kids in schools is absolutely fascinating, because those of you who see little kids know that they cannot stand smoking. Then something happens when they get to be about ten years old, some kind of a switch turns on and they begin to get more seduced by it. By the time they get to be 12 years old they are really vulnerable. There are some good school programs in this country. We're working with the National Education Association to test a really good program in a couple of states. The truth of the matter is that we need more school programs. Teachers have to incorporate this into social studies and into health, into geography and all kinds of things.

QUESTION: Is there a trend toward more smoking in the media?

BILL NOVELLI: Yeah, it is a trend. Smoking is more and more prevalent in movies today, especially the major characters in movies. There are a number of different groups that are trying to figure out what to do about it. We're going to have a conference in Los Angeles in January and bring together as many examples as we can. Not just movies, but music videos and also television.

QUESTION: Smoking is a worldwide problem, isn't it?

BILL NOVELLI: It's huge and the World Health Organization estimates that there are something like ten million people who are going to die from smoking who are alive right now. That's just outside of China. In China there are probably 100 million who are going to die from smoking. So, it's colossal, both from a dollar side and on the human side.

QUESTION: We keep seeing more and more cigar smoking -- Does that worry you?

BILL NOVELLI: Cigars snuck in under the radar screen. F.D.A. didn't look at it. C.D.C. and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation did a study six or seven months ago and they found that 20 something percent of all kids have tried cigars recently, particularly girls. So, cigars are picking up. It's a power tool. I think that's why it's popular for characters to brandish a cigar. We've go to face up to cigars. We would like to help in any way we can. We have good experts that you can call on for any substance abuse issue, including tobacco. Thank you very much.

AUDIENCE: [APPLAUSE]