8 states sue cigarette maker over ad

The Camel cigarette-sponsored portion of an illustrated advertising section in the Nov. 15 issue of Rolling Stone magazine. Prosecutors in several states yesterday said the section violates the tobacco industry's nine-year-old promise not to use cartoons to sell cigarettes. (Associated Press)

HARRISBURG, Pa. - An illustrated section packaged with Camel ads in Rolling Stone magazine violates the tobacco industry's nine-year-old promise not to use cartoons to sell cigarettes, prosecutors in various states said yesterday.

Attorneys general in at least eight states planned to file lawsuits against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. over the advertising for Camel cigarettes in the November edition of Rolling Stone.

The section combines pages of Camel cigarette ads with pages of magazine-produced illustrations on the theme of independent rock music.

"Their latest nine-page advertising spread in Rolling Stone, filled with cartoons, flies in the face of their pledge to halt all tobacco marketing to children," Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett said in a statement released yesterday.

Pennsylvania and Washington state filed lawsuits yesterday, Corbett's office said. Attorneys general in California, Connecticut, Illinois, New York, Ohio, and Maryland also said they were suing.

The landmark 1998 settlement between 46 states and the tobacco industry reimburses states for smoking-related healthcare costs. In an effort to prevent the industry from pitching to minors, the agreement includes a provision against using cartoons in advertisements.

The cigarette ads in Rolling Stone tout its "The Farm: Free Range Music" campaign and support for independent record labels while using photographic images of people in 1950s dress, farm animals, an old-fashioned tractor, and furnishings like a phonograph against a farm backdrop. Those pages fold out to reveal a four-page illustrated spread of an "Indie Rock Universe" with animals, imaginary figures, and other drawings.

David Howard, a spokesman for R.J. Reynolds in Winston-Salem, N.C., insisted the Camel ads contained no cartoons and that the ad campaign is aimed at adults.

While the company was surprised and concerned by Rolling Stone's illustrations, R.J. Reynolds bore no responsibility for it, he said.

Ray Chelstowski, publisher of Rolling Stone, said R.J. Reynolds had no idea that the magazine's pages on indie rock would be illustrations, as opposed to text, and argued that the Camel ads push the music website, not cigarettes.

"Particularly the fact that what Camel is promoting here is a website makes at least some of the accusations seem far-fetched," Chelstowski said yesterday.