| Date:
Mon, May 14, 2001 3:26 PM
Subject: Cigarette and Smokeless Tobacco Reports To Whom It May Concern, For the past ten years I have been involved in the issue of tobacco advertising. In 1998 I worked on the passage of an ordinance in the city of Milwaukee restricting outdoor tobacco advertising. It was very important to that effort that we were able to document tobacco industry spending on various types of advertising and promotions. It would have been extremely helpful then, and would be so in future efforts in Wisconsin, to have state specific data. I am also involved in local tobacco-free coalitions and school based prevention programs. It has always been instructive to both students, teachers and community members to learn about tobacco industry expenditures designed to promote smoking initiation and continued use. Again, I have used FTC data in the past and will need to have it in the future. It would be much more useful to have both state and brand/company specific data. In order to explain and document the industry strategies that are designed to target teens, women and college-age youth I need up to date very specific information. I am constantly monitoring magazines, newspapers, direct mail, store displays, etc. to keep my own knowledge up to date. Having said that, those of us on the local level do not have the resources to collect all the data that the FTC can. Please feel free to contact me for further information. Bonnie Sumner |