Protect Our Kids. Lose the tobacco Ads.

• Big Tobacco spent more than $11.5 billion in the U.S. in 2005 on advertising, discounts, and promotional efforts at retail sales outlets or "points of purchase" like convenience stores.
• Convenience stores are visited weekly by 75% of adolescents.
• Research has shown retail advertising is more powerful than peer pressure. 
• Retail advertising has double the effect on children than it has on adults.
• The advertisements most likely to be seen, to be liked, and to be viewed as making smoking more appealing are for the brands most commonly smoked by adolescents.

I support the elimination of tobacco company produced advertisements and promotions in retail outlets as a way to decrease the attractiveness of smoking to our young people and protect them from the harmful and often fatal effects of tobacco use.