Youth in your schools and community are in desperate need of your protection. As we discovered in 2005, Time Inc. uses selective binding to ensure that the version of many of its magazines that it mails school or public libraries are filled with cigarette and tobacco advertising.

Is there any doubt but that the below candy flavored cigarette advertisement is either intended to entice youth to smoke or is in reckless disregard for the fact that it will?  It appears in the 11/29/04 issue of Time at page 49 and the 11/22/04 issue of People at page 94, two of the 130+ magazines owned by Time Inc., a Time Warner corporation.

The ad reads, "Camel Winter MochaMint, a chilly blast of peppermint and Mocha [or] Camel Warm Winter Toffee, a swirl of sweet indulgence, cool and minty or warm & toasty. There's only one season to indulge in both. Limited time only. Pleasure to burn."

Would it surprise you to learn that prior to becoming a member of Time's board of directors in January 1991 that on April 26, 1990 the current Chairman and CEO of Time Warner Inc., Richard D. Parsons, was elected to the board of directors at Philip Morris Companies Inc., a position he held until at least February 24, 2000? Would it surprise you to learn that on June 17, 1994 the Chairman and CEO of Philip Morris Companies, Inc., Michael A. Miles, resigned his position and by January 1995 was serving as a director at Time Warner, the world's largest magazine empire, where he still serves today?

Should we ignore Time Inc.'s worldwide tobacco marketing or make our voices heard? Should we have fought to protect Bryan, Noni, Sean, Melinda, Brandon, Kim, or Gruen? How hard should we have fought to protect the 650 million now living nicotine addicts who the World Health Organization says will each eventually be killed by tobacco? Where was Time's award winning editors and reporters when it was time to coral and cut the bull, wolf, horse, camel, grizzly, and bucking bronco?

Dear Lord, please let their hearts feel that enough is enough.

As shown above, Time Inc.'s magazine empire is knowingly assisting the nicotine addiction industry in ensuring that America's #1 killer, Europe's #1 killer and the world's #2 killer -- chemical dependency upon nicotine -- remains at the top.

Time Inc. actually encourages and conditions children and teens to become loyal and dedicated early readers of youth versions of Time, Sports Illustrated, and People magazine. It knows they'll soon rebel against being labeled "kids" and fully expects early graduation to versions it knows are heavily baited with tobacco ads. It knows that roughly 90% of smokers became hooked while children or teens.

Following publication of each tobacco ad, Time accepts its slice of the nicotine addiction industry's profits pie while being fully aware that the advertisements it ran were extremely effective in helping breed grassroots community climates that here in the U.S. daily lure 6,000 young, immature, gullible and unsuspecting minds into that first fateful puff, a puff that will soon lead to half battling a lifetime of neurochemical enslavement.

It knows that, according to Philip Morris, "symptoms of addiction (having strong urges to smoke, feeling anxious or irritable, or having unsuccessfully tried not to smoke) can appear in teens and preteens within ... only days after they become 'occasional' smokers."

It knows that smart tobacco companies want youth to believe they can safely smoke a few cigarettes before getting hooked. But that's when, for many, the symptoms become apparent. Clearly, the brain starts to protect itself by de-sensitizing critical neuronal pathways prior to being noticed. Could the brain's physical alterations begin with that first powerful puff? We just don't yet know for sure and until science provides clear answers it is reckless to assume otherwise.

Time Inc. is aware that the CDC contends that young people vastly underestimate the addictiveness of nicotine. "More than 3,000 persons under the age of 18 years become daily smokers every day. Of daily smokers who think that they will not smoke in five years, nearly 75 percent are still smoking five to six years later."

Time Inc. is fully aware, that as with most of the tobacco ads it runs, the above candy flavored cigarette ad is false and extremely deceptive. It knows that 90% of adult smokers are already chemically addicted to smoking nicotine under DSM III mental health standards. It knows that they are not driven to smoke because of flavor or taste but because they must - because it hurts when they don't. While watching more than 30 million Americans suck smoke hard and deep into crying lungs, Time remains fully aware that there are no taste buds inside human lungs.

It knows that year after year CDC surveys find that roughly 70% of smokers want to quit. It knows that each year 40% of smokers make a mad dash for freedom and that almost all fail (95%). It knows that the vast majority of the payments it accepted for running the ads appearing on this page were involuntarily derived from addicted nicotine addicts living on a fast track of decay, disease, trying, failing, crying, dying and death. It knows that addiction to smoking nicotine is so gripping that roughly half of adult smokers actually smoke themselves to death, each an average of 13 to 14 years early.

What logic, business, or economic sense does it make to contribute to the demise of so many young loyal readers? It makes you wonder how many senior executives at Time are nicotine dependent themselves and how their own chemical addiction influences the health of an entire nation. It makes you wonder just how much pull the tobacco industry has inside the Time Warner boardroom.

Imagine Time Inc. answering more than 400 times as many American deaths than claimed by the Iraq war and terrorism combined, with page after page of full-page ads selling the product that actually killed them (now, in candy flavored form). Why? Is this journalism or the most deadly shade of publisher greed our world has ever known?

The editors may want to divorce themselves of responsbility for Time Inc. surrounding honest news with dishonest and destructive advertising but they can't anymore than they can shed their own skin. Either they truly are independent and able to attack their own magazine as being part of the problem, or advertiser protection truly does comes first. Which is it?

This protest, youth protection exercise, and request to boycott Time Inc. magazines will remain active so long as it is Time Inc.'s policy to continue assisting in promoting the neurochemical enslavement of the world's youth. On behalf of youth in your community I ask that you: (1) have the ads on this page removed from inside schools in your area; (2) help get them removed from physician waiting rooms; and (3) let Time know how you feel.

Protecting Your Schools

If you make an unannounced visit to the nearest high school library you may just discover that it is loaded with magazines containing tobacco ads. If you take your camera, as I did, you may also discover that once the principal learns what you're doing that you'll be in for a rough time getting your photos out the front door. Be sure and sign-in at the office first and do NOT hide the fact that you are headed to the library to photograph magazine tobacco ads, if any exist. The school likely has specific polices about cameras in order to protect student privacy.

You might want to play it safe and call ahead first. Ask for the school library (or media center as most are now called), and then ask if they carry any of the magazine titles listed on WhyQuit's Fall 2004 Magazine Tobacco Ads list. Directly ask if the school removes tobacco ads. You may also want to ask them to visually verify that a tobacco ad is located at the referenced page as I understand that some magazines have created special school versions in which all tobacco ads have been removed.

If ads are present you have a number of options. You can contact your school board members directly and request an immediate policy change (possibly via e-mail), you can contact local media (don't look for too much help from your newspaper if they themselves profit from tobacco marketing through newspaper store inserts selling tobacco), or even build your own web page calling for action (if you need help let me know).

You may want to have local media accompany you into the school to verify what you've been told. Be sure and print WhyQuit's ad list and take it with you. Parents in your community have an absolute right to know what's happening inside their child's school.

Did the tobacco companies knowingly plant these ads inside our schools or were they intentionally mailed by greed-driven reckless publishers like Time Inc. who clearly saw the word "school" printed on the mailing label? If true, is there any way possible for Time Inc. to honestly deny that it is not knowingly and intentionally engaged in helping chemically enslave America's youth? Is that news? You bet it is!

Will you ever in your lifetime read an indepth story in any of Time Inc.'s 130 magazines shedding serious light on the above horrific internal assault on America's young while inside the protective sanctuary of their schools? Absolutely not. This is the legal drug addiction industry where just one chemical rakes in as much as much as the entire pharmaceutical industry. There's plenty of money to keep all the players in line. Sadly, it's how magazine staff salaries and retirement pensions are today getting paid.

Do your own research into Time coverage on "why" tobacco remained America's number #1 killer during 2004. They simply cannot make a serious frontal assault on the U.S. Congress or state legislators for being up to their ears in tobacco industry campaign contributions -- while failing to warn youth that it's more addictive and harder to beat than heroin or cocaine -- when Time Inc. is doing the exact same thing. Every few years it may playfully nibble but Time Inc. will never bite the hand that feeds it, as it would also be biting itself.

Waking Your Physician

You may be shocked to discover that your doctor is likely helping Time Inc. market America's #1 killer to patients waiting to be seen. What kind of message does it send when your own physician's waiting room is filled with magazines begging them to continue smoking themselves to death? When you get back to see the doctor, let them know about the waiting-room hypocrisy outside.

Before leaving your doctor's office (or local high school library) ask for permission to remove all tobacco ads even if it means sacrificing a story on the ad's backside. You might be surprised by the response you'll receive.

Involving Your Community

Talk with family, friends, business, community and religious leaders, encouraging each to commit to doing all possible to keep the destructive influence of Time, Sports Illustrated, People, Field & Stream, Popular Science and Outdoor Life from infecting young minds in your community.

Encourage them to not subject children to the Time Inc. dependency influence pipeline by canceling subscriptions to Time for Kids, Sports Illustrated for Kids and Teen People before the child's mind becomes conditioned to believe that these titles can be relied upon as trusted sources of accurate information.

Our objective isn't to damage Time Inc. readership but to educate its leadership to the honest reality that it's beyond time to mature and assume responsibility for Time Inc.'s shameful legacy in fostering dependency, decay, disease, trying, crying, and dying.

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Time's Flawed Reasoning

On November 28, 2004 at 5:05 PM, I wrote Time giving it the link to this page (which has been revised substantially since then), inviting it to examine the content for accuracy prior to Internet publication, offering to immediately correct any factual errors (which offer still holds), asking for a pledge that TIME would end its recruiting role for the world's #2 killer, letting it know that it wasn't my intent to harm Time but to awaken it to its role in helping enslave thousands of young minds, and asking it to shed a rather serious health conflict of interest that prevents its talented team from giving serious attention to a drug that this year will claim four hundred times as many Americans as Iraq."

Less the ostrich gif, below is an exact full text copy of a reply I received. There is no denying that TIME's logic makes sense when the product has worth or value to readers, and the message conveyed is honest. But what if the product lacks value? What if 90% of regular users end up with a highly destructive chemical dependency instead? What if the ad isn't honest? What if, in R.J. Reynolds' own words, the flavorings and hype are simply bait?

Listen to the 1972 words of R.J. Reynolds' research director - "a tobacco product is, in essence, a vehicle for delivery of nicotine," "nicotine is the sine qua non of smoking," "we somehow must convince him with wholly irrational reasons that he should try smoking," "if we meekly accept the allegations of our critics and move toward reduction or elimination of nicotine from our products, then we shall eventually liquidate our business."

According to Time, "as long as the products in the ads are legitimate items of commerce - and as long as the ads are within the bounds of good taste - we accept them. And that includes cigarette ads." Such callous indifference to rapid and permanent neurochemical enslavement of young readers, that gradually destroys their health while shortening their lives, shocks the conscience.

Time's express assertion that it would not hesitate to do serious smoking harm stories, such as how over $100 million in annual tobacco industry magazine advertising contributes to youth dependency, or how extremely addictive smoking nicotine truly is, simply does not hold water. It cannot report the whole truth without painting its own practices central to the problem. The news side of TIME magazine will never ever ever openly admit that TIME profits, and editor and writer salaries get paid, by helping chemically enslave young Americans.

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Re: Your campaign against tobacco ads
Date: Monday, November 29, 2004 3:39 PM

Dear Mr. Polito:

TIME, like all commercial magazines, must carry ads; it is largely through ads that the huge cost of putting together each week's issue can be met. And as long as the products in the ads are legitimate items of commerce-and as long as the ads are within the bounds of good taste-we accept them. And that includes cigarette ads. What we have just explained is the way our advertising department works, and we would point out that that department is separate from the editorial side of things, which is responsible for reporting and discussing the news.

We on the editorial side have no say in what is accepted for advertising; the publishing side has no say in what stories we report. And as you may know, we have no hesitation in reporting on the dangers of smoking and on developments in the national debate over smoking.

Finally, we would note that carrying advertisements for any legal item (like cigarettes) does not imply the carrier's judgment on that product one way or the other; decisions on its value are made by those who buy (or do not buy) that product.

Thank you very much for writing, and best wishes.

Sincerely,

Betty Satterwhite
TIME letters

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• Send a fax or written letter to:
  
  Richard D. Parsons
  Chairman & CEO Time Warner Inc.
  One Time Warner Center
  New York, NY 10019-8016
  Phone 212.484.8000
  Fax 212.484.7171
  
  
• Send or fax a letter to:
  
  Ann S. Moore
  CEO Time Inc.
  1271 Avenue of the Americas
  34th Floor
  New York, NY 10020-1393
  Phone 212.522.1212
  Fax 212.522.7639
  
  
• E-mail a Letter to the Editor of Time magazine (Norman Pearlstine's biography). If you keep it short -- just a few sentences -- it actually stands a slight chance of being published.

• E-mail Time's Worldwide Publisher Edward R. McCarrick or call Mr. McCarrick at (212) 522-3273

• E-mail Time's Public Affairs Manager Jennifer Zawadzinski (TIME.com) or call Ms. Zawadzinski at 212-522-9046

• E-mail a Letter to the Editor of People magazine.

• E-mail a Letter to the Editor of Sports Illustrated.

• Cancel the balance of your subscription to Time

• Cancel the balance of your subscription to People

• Cancel the balance of your subscription to Sports Illustrated

• Cancel the balance of your subscription to Popular Science

• Cancel the balance of your subscription to Field & Stream

• Cancel the balance of your subscription to Outdoor Life

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• Kids and vaping: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure - Joel Spitzer, 02/14/19>
  
  
• STUDENT ALERT: e-cigarettes & juuling are dangerous - John R. Polito, 02/09/19
  
  
• How you can help prevent kids from vaping - Joel Spitzer, 01/23/19
  
  
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• Enslaved college smokers pay hefty price - John R. Polito, 10/18/09
  
  
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• Why Obama and smokers fear quitting - John R. Polito, 07/06/09
  
  
• The President Needs Your Help to Quit - John R. Polito, 06/29/09
  
  
• Obama Smoking Assertions Fail Fact Checks - John R. Polito, 06/24/09
  
  
• Obama Can't Quit Smoking for Kinsley or America's Youth - John R. Polito, 11/23/08
  
  
• Inconsistent Flavor of Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids - John R. Polito, 10/13/08
  
  
• Young dying smokers share nightmares online - John R. Polito, 04/30/08
  
  
• Obama Youth Nicotine Dependency Lessons Unacceptable - John R. Polito, 03/06/08
  
  
• Nicotine Damages First Trimester Embryo - John R. Polito, 02/06/08
  
  
• Admitting physical addiction key to quitting smoking - John R. Polito, 10/03/07
  
  
• "I'm Deborah, 38, and smoking has smoked this body" - Deborah Scott, 09/13/07
  
  
• Confessions of a teenage nicotine addict - John R. Polito, 07/17/07
  
  
• Critical Review: Nicotine for the Fetus, the Infant and the Adolescent? - K.H. Ginzel MD et al, 02/06/07
  
  
• School smoking & nicotine dependency: students helping students - John R. Polito, 11/28/06
  
  
• The Law of Addiction - John R. Polito, 07/24/06
  
  
• Nicotine Not Medicine, Its Use Not Therapy - John R. Polito, 04/18/06
  
  
• Convenience Stores - Nicotine Addiction Central - John R. Polito, 03/18/06
  
  
• Survey finds dramatic decline in College of Charleston student smoking - John R. Polito, 12/18/05
  
  
• Philip Morris revises "Raising kids who don't smoke" - John R. Polito,12/05/05
  
  
• College smokers teach teens tobacco truths - John R. Polito, 11/22/05
  
  
• TIME Magazine's Health Hypocrisy - John R. Polito, 10/19/05
  
  
• Kids just don't get it! - Joel Spitzer, 10/05/05
  
  
• Study takes preschoolers cigarette shopping - John R. Polito, 09/19/05
  
  
• Latina Magazine - enslaving & killing hispanic females - John R. Polito, 09/03/05
  
  
• Philip Morris USA's "Could your kid be smoking?" - John R. Polito, 08/30/05
  
  
• The New Jazz Philosophy Tour 2005 - John R. Polito, 06/15/05
  
  
• What tobacco issue is important to Philip Morris? - John R. Polito, 06/03/05
  
  
• Time Inc. tobacco ads trap and harvest teens in school - John R. Polito, 02/27/05
  
  
• Time to boycott Time magazine? - John R. Polito, 11/28/04
  
  
• Are teens getting hooked on NRT? - John R. Polito, 06/11/03
  
  
• WhyQuit on Youth 1999-2020
  
  
• Weiser, R., Smoking And Women's Magazines: 2001-2002, American Council on Science and Health, December 1, 2004
  
  
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• Feighery EC, et al, Seeing, wanting, owning: the relationship between receptivity to tobacco marketing and smoking susceptibility in young people (free full text copy of study), Tobacco Control 1998;7:123-128
  
  
• Pierce JP, et al, Tobacco industry promotion of cigarettes and adolescent smoking (free full text copy of study) JAMA 1998;279:511-516