Youth Market Targeted in ’73 Tobacco Memo

WASHINGTON —  An official at R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. proposed marketing cigarettes to underage smokers as early as the 1970s and even suggested that teen-age rebellion might make the risks more attractive.

“We must get our share of the youth market. In my opinion this will require new brands tailored to the youth market,” wrote Claude E. Teague Jr., who was assistant director of research and development, in a Feb. 2, 1973, memo.

While “we should not in any way influence non-smokers to start smoking,” Teague wrote, “we should simply recognize that many or most of the ’21 and under’ group will inevitably become smokers.” The memo says anti-Establishment sentiment could “cause the young to want to be defiant and smoke.”

Scott D. Ballin, chairman of the Coalition on Smoking OR Health, said the memo “is clear and convincing evidence that they’re targeting kids.”

But RJR spokesman David B. Fishel called it “a draft document” from one person, with no indication it was ever acted upon.