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Articles reprinted from various sources

Philip Morris Image a Tough Sell

The top cigarette maker says it has changed. Many tobacco foes are not impressed.

By Myron Levin, Times Staff Writer

December 19, 2004

The reaction was passionate and swift when Western Michigan University crowned tobacco king Philip Morris USA its "Employer of the Year."

About 400 protest letters poured in from the U.S. and 37 foreign countries. Honoring Philip Morris "is not only a mistake but a terrible blow to humanity," fumed a writer from Nigeria. "I think to be able to teach and preach to your students about good moral, this robust romance with PHILIP MORRIS should stop."

Defending the award, bestowed in October, university officials said they weren't endorsing smoking, only recognizing the company's exemplary support for student job fairs and recruitment programs.

The uproar over an obscure award underscores what Philip Morris is up against as it seeks to bury its past and craft an image as a good corporate citizen.

The company and its parent, Altria Group Inc., have moved aggressively to separate themselves from the rest of the tobacco industry. Philip Morris has spent $500 million over the last five years on programs to fight underage smoking, such as paying incentives to retailers to keep cigarettes behind the counter. The company's TV commercials state flatly that smoking is dangerous and addictive.

Altria is the only major tobacco company to voluntarily stop advertising its brands in magazines. And it has broken ranks with its competitors by joining top health and anti-smoking groups in seeking authority for the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco products.

Long known for charitable giving, Altria has donated about $60 million this year to 1,200 nonprofit groups involved in its pet causes: the arts, hunger relief and curbing domestic violence.

But many aren't buying Altria's new look. Tobacco foes — and some neutral observers — say there's a disconnect between the image it presents and the way Altria makes its living as the world's largest and most successful marketer of a deadly product. They contend that the company still promotes its brands in foreign markets by methods long banished here. And they say that in the U.S., the company continues to resist measures that would cut the death toll from smoking.

"The whole thing is sort of a semi-charade, in my opinion," said Alan Siegel, chairman of Siegel & Gale, a strategic branding and consulting firm. "You can do all the cause marketing and philanthropic things you want. It still doesn't overcome the fact that you're making money with a product that can kill you."

Still, there are signs that hostility toward the company may be softening. For example, state attorneys general credit Philip Morris with sticking faithfully to marketing curbs contained in the 1998 agreement that settled anti-tobacco lawsuits by the states.

"In terms of keeping their agreement, Philip Morris has done a much better job of staying in compliance than … some of the other companies," said California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer.

And the Reputation Quotient, an annual corporate image rating, suggests Altria is gaining in esteem. This year, the company rose to 48th place in the ranking of the 60 most visible U.S. companies, according to the survey developed by the Reputation Institute and Harris Interactive Inc. In previous years, Altria had ranked as low as 60th and never above 52nd.

"We assumed and believed that it was going to take a while before people accepted our actions for what we think they are," said Steven C. Parrish, Altria's senior vice president of corporate affairs. "It is not part of a public relations strategy, but I'm fully aware that me saying that is not going to convince longtime critics of what our motives are.

"The fact is, things have changed."

Altria's holdings include 84.6% of Kraft Foods Inc., the largest U.S. food company, and a 36% stake in SABMiller, a global brewing concern. But cigarettes still provide more than half the company's operating income. In the U.S., where Philip Morris' market share has grown to 49%, it has become so dominant that the term "Big Tobacco" is something of an anachronism: It's really Philip Morris and everyone else.

Last year, the parent company finalized a name change from Philip Morris Cos. to Altria, a lofty-sounding but made-up word. The explanation — that the change was needed to clarify the diverse array of the company's businesses — was widely greeted by winks and smirks.

"When you hear Altria, you don't think about cigarettes, do you?" said Lou Colasuonno of Westhill Partners, a New York-based management consulting firm. "Altria" banished the "instant association with cigarettes, lies, lung cancer," he said.

The company has also undertaken more substantive changes. Its support for FDA regulation was a radical break from the tradition of cigarette makers marching in lock step against all manner of oversight. The bill, which passed in the Senate in October but failed in the House, would have given the FDA the power to expand tobacco warning labels, limit advertising, disclose ingredients and order the removal of harmful compounds. It is likely to come up again in the next Congress.

To drum up support for the bill, Altria lobbyists brandished ads for candy-flavored versions of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.'s Camel and Brown & Williamson Tobacco's Kool cigarettes to illustrate problems that regulation would address.

Many observers view the company's support for the bill as a shrewd business decision, even though it would probably bring a decline in smoking rates. As the richest of the tobacco companies, Philip Morris would be most likely to prosper under a regulatory regime, analysts say. Compliance costs would be a heavier burden on smaller firms, and Philip Morris would probably boost its market share.

And the company was well aware of the halo effect of supporting the legislation. As a company consultant noted in a memo in 2001, "The simple fact that other tobacco companies will likely come out [against FDA regulation] provides Philip Morris a chance to distinguish itself from its competitors as a good corporate citizen."

Whatever the motive, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), a sponsor of the bill, said he welcomed the company's support. "But I don't think anybody can escape the fact that they're in the business of selling a product that kills millions of people around the world each year," Waxman said. "Based on that fact alone, it's impossible to call Philip Morris socially responsible."

The company has gained mileage from its FDA stand — and in doing so, struck a raw nerve in the tobacco control movement, which is image-conscious itself.

In a speech in October at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, Altria Senior Vice President David Greenberg, who once worked for Ralph Nader, boasted that the company had "partnered with" the pillars of the anti-smoking world, including the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, the American Cancer Society, the American Lung Assn. and the American Heart Assn.

After being bombarded by e-mails from irate activists, the heads of the four groups fired off a protest letter to Altria Chairman and Chief Executive Louis C. Camilleri.

"Philip Morris should stop trying to borrow legitimacy from our reputations and decades of work in tobacco control and public health," their letter said. Common ground on FDA "does not make us 'partners'…. We call on Altria/Philip Morris to immediately cease such claims."

Parrish of Altria wrote back to apologize for "this inadvertent misstatement."

Critics say other actions by Philip Morris contradict claims that it has fundamentally changed.

Despite investing to fight teen smoking, the company's powerhouse Marlboro brand is even more popular among underage smokers than adults. Marlboro has a total market share of 38% but is the favorite brand of about 49% of 12- to 17-year-olds, according to a 2003 survey by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Opponents say the industry must entice youths because few smokers take up the habit after their teens. It's "completely disingenuous that they don't want kids to smoke because they have to have kids smoke," said Ruth Malone, an associate professor of nursing and health policy at UC San Francisco's medical school.

And critics complain that Philip Morris continues to oppose tobacco tax hikes, even though higher taxes discourage smoking, particularly by cost-sensitive teens.

In November, for example, Altria and Philip Morris spent $1.35 million in a failed effort to defeat a tobacco-tax increase in Oklahoma, according to records filed with the state's ethics commission.

Peggy Roberts, senior director of communications and media affairs for Philip Morris USA, said the company fought the measure partly because excessive taxes promote contraband and Internet sales, where age verification is absent.

"As a manufacturer of a product that has serious health effects and is addictive, we do have a responsibility to help keep kids from smoking," Roberts said. "We're trying to make an effort in other ways" to do that.

In league with tavern and restaurant associations, Philip Morris also has continued to battle indoor smoking bans, including in Idaho and New York this year.

Roberts said the company from now on would sit out these fights, an internal decision that she said was made about two months ago.

"It's a big departure from what we've done traditionally," Roberts said.

Despite advertising restrictions in their settlement with the states, promotional spending by Philip Morris and its rivals has increased 85% since the deal was signed — a sore point with health groups. According to the Federal Trade Commission, the total rose from $6.7 billion in 1998, the year of the agreement, to $12.5 billion in 2002, the most recent year for which figures are available. Roberts would not disclose Philip Morris' share of that, saying the figure was proprietary.

Of the rising flood of promotional dollars, relatively little goes for traditional advertising, such as tobacco billboards that were banned by the settlement. Instead, the companies are spending heavily on in-store ads and consumer discounts such as coupons — in other words, critics say, trying to keep people smoking by blunting the effect of higher taxes.

Like its major global rivals, Altria's Philip Morris International unit continues its aggressive push to win customers abroad, including sponsoring sporting and artistic events in countries where knowledge of the risks of smoking is more limited than in the U.S., industry foes say.

Philip Morris has made Marlboro, the world's bestselling brand, such a popular symbol that it now finds itself fighting to keep the logo off everything from baby bibs and toy cars to kiddie amusement rides.

"It's inappropriate, we don't want to see it, and we suffer from it," said David Davies, senior vice president of corporate affairs for Philip Morris International. Davies said company sales reps had been instructed to report such things to the legal department.

"No one is authorized to use our [trademark] on anything — let alone something that is of an appeal to children."

Smoking 'em out

When Philip Morris stages its annual adventure fest in southern Utah for young overseas smokers, the party is strictly private.

 By Charles Duhigg, Times Staff Writer

Harley Bates is steaming. He pushes past the off-duty cop standing in front of his ranch and charges the reporter and photographer.

"Get the hell off my land!" he says.

"Sir, I'm a reporter … "

"You're scaring people taking their pictures as they drive in!"

A quarter of a mile away, the roof of a school bus crowns a small hill. Through a telephoto lens, tiny figures mill about. The reporter and photographer take turns looking for wisps of cigarette smoke.

So begins the third day of the 2004 Adventure Team, a 12-day hiking, four-wheeling and canyoneering extravaganza on Utah's public lands and one of Philip Morris International's most secretive — and successful — Marlboro promotions.

Forty-two young men and women from Europe, Latin America and Asia, selected from more than 1 million applicants, are playing cowboy at the company's expense. (Because of legal constraints, Americans cannot participate.)

All contestants undergo a complex application process, each handing over their name, address and personal details about where they shop, what music they listen to and what they smoke. As more and more countries restrict tobacco advertising, the data allow the company to talk directly to its customers.

Marlboro marketers and outdoorsy camps — doubling as focus groups — whittled applicants down to a busload. The winners were flown in September to Moab, where Philip Morris showered them with fleece, leather and custom-made cowboy hats. By day, they crossed Utah's public lands, playing on ATVs and horseback, and by night, they retired to private ranches, like Bates'. In return, they surrendered their names and photos for future advertisements.

At the front gate, standing on public land, the reporter starts asking questions.

"Sir, the public has a right to know how Utah's public lands are used to promote cigarettes … "

"Nonsense!" yells Bates.

The photographer raises his camera. The reporter stands a little straighter and sucks in his gut.

Critics have long attacked the Marlboro Adventure Team's use of public spaces, arguing that America's canyons, deserts and picturesque birthrights shouldn't help sell cigarettes.

In response, during the last five years Philip Morris has gone underground, operating on both public and private land and keeping as low a profile as possible.

Which begs the question: Why bother? Why fly halfway around the world when the Alps, the Negev and the beaches of Micronesia are closer to the contestants? Is Utah really worth the trouble? And why does Moab, a magnet for environmental activists, turn a blind eye?

The answers, as John Wayne once noted, are "land and money, the two things that drive men mad."

The reporter presses on: "We just want to speak with the team … "

Bates invites the reporter to kiss a certain part of his anatomy and walks away. The rising sun begins its attack on the surrounding red rock towers. Then the cowboy stops and spits toward the interlopers.

The off-duty cop hooks a thumb in his belt and smiles. "Welcome to Marlboro Country," he says.

This is not America

The tobacco invasion of Utah began in Chicago in 1962.

Just 10 years earlier, Marlboro cigarettes suffered from an image problem. The brand was smoked primarily by women and was one of Philip Morris' biggest commercial disappointments. The company asked ad wizard Leo Burnett, famous for multimedia blitzkriegs featuring characters like the Jolly Green Giant, for help.

"I said, 'What's the most masculine symbol you can think of?' " Burnett recalled in a 1972 documentary. "One of these writers spoke up and said a cowboy. And I said, 'That's for sure.' "

Eight months after the campaign began, Marlboro sales had increased 5,000%. The ads depicted real cowboys on real cattle drives. In the early 1960s, marketers shifted the focus from cowboys to the Southwest's lonely, rugged expanses, and Marlboro Country was born. Since the 1970s, the brand has been the No. 1 seller worldwide.

The 1990s, however, presented new challenges. One of the early Marlboro Men announced he was dying of lung cancer and, at a shareholders' meeting, berated the chairman of Philip Morris. Multiple companies drew fire for promoting their brands with cartoon-like advertising (think Joe Camel) that critics said enticed children to smoke. In 1998, as lawsuits filed by state attorneys general threatened to undo the tobacco industry, cigarette makers agreed to pay $246 billion over 25 years to state coffers and curtail some forms of advertising. By then, however, Philip Morris had turned its attention to Eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia, where more smokers and fewer regulations beckoned. Commercials showing Marlboro Country were ubiquitous overseas.

Philip Morris relies on the Marlboro Adventure Team to extend its reach. At the inaugural event in 1982, 16 Germans descended on Moab and quickly destroyed one jeep, three motorcycles and themselves. Photographers captured it for a new ad campaign, and the Marlboro Adventure Team concept took off. Moab has held the event almost every year since then with support from the local community.

Back at Bates' ranch, the school bus speeds away. The reporter and photographer, choking on dust, follow in their rental car. Twenty minutes later, the bus parks near the Colorado River and team members begin transferring bags to a canvas-enshrouded pontoon motorboat idling along the red clay banks. The reporter and photographer approach the group in the public parking lot.

"Can I ask you a few questions?" the reporter asks one of the American guides.

"Dude, you've been told to stay away! All right? I've got nothing to say!" John is a muscular young man in his 20s with big teeth who gives only his first name. "If you don't leave, I'm going to hit you!"

The reporter eyes John's threatening muscles and boulder-sized teeth. Near the boat, a gaggle of slim, attractive men and women converse in broken English and watch.

"Hey, can I ask you guys a few questions?" the reporter shouts to break the tension. They only stare back.

"Go away!" one woman yells.

Beginning in the mid-1990s, the Marlboro team changed its focus from macho burly men to more average smokers. The implied message is easy to understand: Everyone can be a Marlboro Man; all they need is to love the outdoors, love adventure and, of course, love smoking.

"Why are you bothering us?" the woman asks. "This is not American."

The reporter would like to correct her on that point. Where are Woodward and Bernstein when you need them? John steps closer, clenching his fists.

In previous years, American journalists joined the team. This year, however, team members, according to company executive Franηois Moreillon, asked that Americans not intrude on their trip. Philip Morris agreed. "We want the winners to experience the freedom of America," explains Moreillon. "And we find this is easiest when Americans are not part of the event."

Another team member points at the crouching photographer taking pictures of the boat. "This is not America," he says. It seems a common sentiment around here. "This," he points to the glowing canyon, walls of gold and ochre that, rumor has it, once hid Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, "is America. You are nothing."

The boat cuts across water shimmering with reflected sun, plunges between stone cliffs and disappears.

Follow the money

That Moab — known for its buttes, meadows and air so clean it stings the lungs — is home to the Marlboro Adventure Team may seem odd. Throughout the 1990s, national antismoking groups approached Utah's state legislators, a largely antismoking, pro-Mormon group, and asked, in effect, What Would Jesus Smoke? The Legislature hedged, first by passing one of the nation's most vigorous public smoking bans and then persuading Philip Morris to keep the team in Moab.

Jesus, apparently, was no match for greed. Last year, overseas visitors spent about $174 million in Utah, and the Marlboro team alone brings $2 million to Moab's lonely coffers. In the past, city residents have protested against oil drilling, thumper trucks, road extensions, new jeep trails, dismantling wilderness protection, sound pollution and even murals, but when the team's jeeps drive through town, residents come out and wave.

"There's a lot of money at stake," says Rick Donham, supervisor of Moab's community substance abuse center. "If we protested, it would make us very unpopular."

Others agree.

"This is your typical … little town that is beautiful and filled with greedy hotel owners," says Aubrey Davis, 26, an employee at an independent bookstore that holds poetry readings and sells anti-Bush stickers.

"Plus, the Mormon church is antismoking," she says, as she lifts her pack of smokes. "And if the church is against it, I'm for it."

Even so, Philip Morris tries to be invisible. The company is never mentioned in land-use applications, which are filed by International Adventure Tours, the Moab company responsible for the logistics. Philip Morris and International Adventure Tour employees refuse to speak to the press. Jeeps and motorbikes used by the team, once stamped with Marlboro logos, are now simply painted red.

Auf Wiedersehen, baby

Philip Morris has heard about "complications with the press." Tipped off by weeks of intrusive phone calls and field reports from team employees, the company has flown in two representatives from Europe.

The previous evening the reporter and photographer, determined to speak to an actual team member, waited by a public campground carved into the dry cliffs overlooking Moab.

When two team employees drove up in an SUV, the reporter pulled his car across the path. They wheeled around him, sending up plumes of dust, and the reporter followed, destroying headlights and compressing vertebrae across pitted rock trails that run beside 100-foot crevasses.

Eventually, the team car stopped, and the window rolled down.

The reporter approached the vehicle.

"We just want to know … " he began.

"I hate you!" a crying woman screamed at him from the passenger's seat. The car took off again.

Now Philip Morris wants to talk.

"We will make you a deal," says Moreillon. "We will let you join the team tomorrow if you stop scaring people."

Scaring people? The reporter and photographer have acted well within their rights; this is after all public land. But Moreillon is a kind man who spends his spare time promoting rock bands in Switzerland where he lives. He is hardly a merchant of death, as the rap has it with most cigarette executives. A deal is struck.

The next morning the reporter and photographer join six team members mounting horses for a daylong ride. Leading the trip is a familiar face, cowboy Harley Bates.

The team members, ranging in age from 22 to 24, are nice and goofy, like American kids but from Israel, Latvia, Spain and the Philippines. "I filled out the application in class because, you know, I like to smoke and I like free trips," says Jose Luis Garcνa, 22, from Spain. "And the class was boring."

Another team member is trying to decide whether to become a biologist or a dancer. "They seem very similar jobs to me," says Elizabete Piuse, who's also 22 but from Latvia.

The team is much less ominous than the secrecy surrounding the event. In fact, most members are unaware of the controversies and battles that brought them here. They simply feel lucky to be in America, birthplace of the most iconic cigarette imagery in the world.

The Philip Morris representatives watch protectively. Why, the reporter asks Moreillon, is it so important to be here, in Moab?

"America is Marlboro Country. There is no other place that is so free," he replies.

At the head of the pack, Bates is offering a graduate course in frontier free enterprise, explaining how foreign competition has undermined American ranching.

As if on cue, the riders pick up a trail meandering next to a private hunting preserve. Tall, waving branches of nearby pines shade the team, and Bates' dog scampers around, searching for scents under a tree where a sign warns trespassers they may be shot.

"We love this land," Moreillon continues. "But America scares everyone a little." Some of this year's winners, he says, citing security concerns and opposition to U.S. foreign policy, declined to join.

The ride continues into an aspen forest before descending into a long green valley. A colt, led by one of the guides, spooks and breaks free, charging down a steep path, kicking other horses before he's caught. The sudden explosion unsettles a few of the team members, who seem to loosen up during a cigarette-and-lunch break.

The reporter is able to ask a few more questions. Who are these people? Who actually smokes like this anymore? What do their mothers think?

"I don't actually smoke. I'm a med student," says Spanish team member Anna Mascaraque, 24.

The reporter leans forward. Now we're getting somewhere. A Marlboro representative bursts into sight. Julia Werner, a German Philip Morris employee, is built like a small tank.

"You don't smoke … ?" the reporter begins to ask. Werner drowns out his words.

"OK, end of interview! You are all done! You are enticing them to admit they are not smokers and asking very rude questions! Your invitation is over!"

The reporter and the photographer exchange glances. The group goes silent.

"We don't really care if they smoke … " the reporter begins.

"You can just leave!" the Philip Morris representative shouts. "You are very rude! We never ask these rude questions in Europe!"

The air is growing sharp with chill. The reporter realizes he has no idea where he is or how to find the car. Team members shuffle farther away. There is the faint but distinct howl of some far-off animal.

"We just want to understand why … "

"Then why do you ask such strong questions?" Werner yells. "You try to make everyone feel bad! This is why we exclude Americans!"

The air is getting colder. The reporter and photographer turn and stare at Bates, who is watching from his horse. If they have any hope of getting out of here, it is with him. "Don't worry," he says. "We'll make sure you get a ride back to your car."

He turns his horse and begins trotting away. A guide shouts at Bates: "Ah, that's Marlboro Country, huh?"

Bates looks at the guide, and scoffs. "You know what's real Marlboro Country?" he asks. "The graveyard." He looks into the air and digs his heels into his horse, riding toward the mountains, an American cowboy to the end.

Big Tobacco's train has one destination

Al Lewis
Denver Post Columnist
Tuesday, July 13, 2004 -

Stan Dennis of Wylie, Texas, won a five-day excursion through the Rocky Mountains on a 20-car, double-decker, luxury train, custom built by the makers of Marlboro cigarettes.

The train was supposed to leave Denver in 1996 and snake through the mountains and wide-open spaces of Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho and Montana.

Stan and his guest would dine on five-star cuisine, party in a nightclub and casino, see films in a 16-seat theater, and enjoy books from an on-board library. He'd get $1,000 spending money for stops along the way. He could also go rafting and horseback riding.

If it all seemed too much, Stan could relax in a spa car with massage rooms and five hot tubs. And at night, he would lie under a dome of glass, gazing at stars as he drifted into slumber.

It would be the ride of a lifetime. Unfortunately, Stan's lifetime was over.

A report that the American Lung Association of Colorado released June 30 tells the story of the Marlboro train based on internal Philip Morris documents. Big tobacco companies are required to post millions of formerly secret documents online as a result of a 1998 settlement between the tobacco industry and 46 states.

Anne Landman, a former respiratory therapist in Glade Park, has spent five years poring through the documents to write the lung association's report. She says the documents show how the tobacco industry "undermines public health."

Among the documents is a letter that Stan's widow, Pam Dennis, wrote the cigarette maker on Oct. 8, 1996:

"Stan passed away very unexpectedly earlier this year. As you can see by the attached copy of the death certificate, smoking contributed to his death. I, too, smoke and also entered the sweepstakes. Neither of us have ever won anything in our lives.

"It would really mean a lot to me if I could go on the trip. It would have been a dream 25th wedding anniversary vacation for Stan and me."

Pam, now 51, never saw the $50 million train. Neither did the 2,000 "Marlboro Unlimited Sweepstakes" winners.

Marlboro maker Philip Morris ordered the nearly completed train destroyed in 1997. It was cut apart with torches and cutting tools, then salvaged for scrap.

Employees at Denver-based Rader Railcar signed documents saying they would not talk about this train.

"We were paid to design and build a train, and we built most of it," said Tom Janaky, a vice president at what is now called Colorado Railcar. "It kept a lot of people employed for a year and a half."

When the project was canceled, the company laid off 250 people and closed its Denver manufacturing plant. The company continues building other fancy rail cars at a plant in Fort Lupton.

Philip Morris spokesman Dana Bolden said the train proved too elaborate. "There was no way to make the deadline for the promotion that year," he said.

Online records show Philip Morris spared no expense. It used bullet-resistant glass to guard against overzealous protestors. It also loaded up on smoke detectors and fire extinguishers.

"We need to address the possibility (probability) of smoking in bed," reads one memo. "Can smoke detectors be installed?"

Memos show the train was to have an emergency medical technician on board. There was even a plan for what to do if the engineer had a heart attack or a stroke. Cruise liners go through similar crisis planning routines, but the probabilities seem a bit higher when everyone on the train is nicotine addict.

"Train carries a body bag," a memo said. "The coroner is called when the train arrives in the next town after the death."

In the end, Philip Morris gave most winners $6,000 instead. It now has a "Party at the Ranch" contest, where winners vacation in Montana.

Pam Dennis said she was told her husband's prize was non-transferable.

"I was upset about it at the time," she said. "I already had a friend that was going to go with me."

Her husband's demise eventually scared her into quitting cigarettes. But she said she would jump on that Marlboro train in a heartbeat:

"It sounded like a really nice trip."

Expendable Women

July 5, 2004

One of the uglier aspects of the Bush administration's assault on women's reproductive rights is its concerted undermining of the United Nations Population Fund based on the false accusation that it supports coerced abortions in China.

The fund supports programs in some 141 countries to advance poor women's reproductive health, reduce infant mortality, end the sexual trafficking of women and prevent the spread of H.I.V. and AIDS. Yet under pressure from conservative religious groups, the administration is expected to withhold the $34 million that Congress appropriated this year for these vital efforts, much as President Bush blocked the $34 million Congress approved in 2002 and last year's $25 million allocation.

The damage does not end there. The administration has lately stepped up its effort to isolate the Population Fund by quietly threatening the financing of other leading groups, including Unicef and the World Health Organization, if they continue to work with the fund. Take the chilling example of Marie Stopes International. Last year the State Department discontinued support for a small but well-regarded private AIDS program for African and Asian refugees run by Marie Stopes and other groups, citing Marie Stopes's cooperating in China with the Population Fund.

Just last month, three federal agencies - the United States Agency for International Development, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - pulled their support from a major international conference on health issues, apparently owing to the inclusion of speakers from the Population Fund and the International Planned Parenthood Federation.

To justify these destructive machinations, the Bush administration has perpetuated a bogus accusation that the Population Fund has either stood by or helped with coerced abortions in China. This disregards America's own relationship with China, never mind that none of the money approved by Congress would go to China, or that the State Department's investigating team found no evidence that the Population Fund has supported or participated in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization. It also disregards the Population Fund's crucial role in helping to drive down China's abortion rate below the level of the United States and in encouraging China to devote new attention to combating H.I.V. and AIDS.

Schwarzenegger's cigars coveted

By Will Shuck
Capitol Bureau Chief
Published Sunday, July 4, 2004

SACRAMENTO -- They're quite the souvenirs if you don't set fire to them.

Arnold Schwarzenegger has been giving away his personal-label cigars since he became governor, offering them as a combination of image marketing and slaps on the back.

So many are in circulation, they've become their own coveted currency, passing from superstar governor to Capitol insider to friend of a friend.

Some lawmakers shovel handfuls into their pockets whenever the governor leaves the box open. Others can tell you exactly how many they've received: one, two, three.

Four went to Assemblyman Alan Nakanishi, R-Lodi.

"I don't smoke 'em," he said. "I give them away as souvenirs."

One happy recipient is Lou Meyer of Stockton, who keeps his prize Schwarzenegger-by-way-of-Nakanishi stogie in a humidor, occasionally bringing it out to impress a guest.

Meyer, the regional chief executive officer of American Medical Response, figures his keepsake soon will pass from smokable cigar to political relic -- too stale to be anything but a conversation piece.

"If I can find another one like it, I'll smoke that one," he says. "I doubt very many people smoke their first one."

Sue Nakanishi doesn't smoke, but she thought her husband should remember that charity begins at home.

"She said, 'Hey, give me one,' '' Alan Nakanishi recalled. "So, she has one now."

Assemblyman Guy Houston, R-Livermore, gave one to his brother and put a match to another one.

"It was OK," Houston said. "It's not a Cuban or anything, but it's a quality cigar."

Sometimes the governor hands them out personally. Sometimes he just leaves the box open, with a help-yourself implication.

Not everyone can exercise restraint. Houston said it's embarrassing the way some of his colleagues grab handfuls of the 7 1/4-inch beauties.

"It's like, Come on, guys, act like you belong here," he said.

Assemblyman Greg Aghazarian, R-Stockton, said he's "never counted" how many he has.

"They're really just a trinket," he said. "I give them to people. It's kind of like a calling card. His name is on the wrapper. It's a nice touch."

Asthma forced Aghazarian to give up cigars, so he's never tried one of the governor's.

He said there's no competition to amass the largest collection. "It's not a status thing. It's more like you know when someone's been to the governor's office when they have a cigar in their hand."

It worked for him when, late for a meeting with a constituent, Aghazarian was able to produce the cigar and pass it along. "It's a good ice-breaker," he said.

Sen. Charles Poochigian, R-Fresno, whose district stretches as far north as Lodi, said a personalized cigar is "a nice touch," even for lawmakers such as him who don't smoke.

"I'm not judgmental about those who do," the ever-cautious senator said. "I just choose not to."

He figures he probably has "one or two sitting at home on a dresser or something. I haven't mounted it on walnut or anything like that."

A more-treasured possession, he said, is the pen the governor used to sign the workers' compensation reform bill Poochigian carried for the administration. "When I get around to it, that will be suitably framed."

Assemblywoman Barbara Matthews, D-Tracy, has not a single stogie to her name. Is she seething with jealousy, wounded by neglect?

"No. I'm not," she said. "If the governor offered me a cigar, which he has not, I suppose I would graciously decline. Why would I want a cigar? I do not smoke, and I'm opposed to cigar smoking."

Still, she is not completely bereft of celebrity-governor keepsakes.

She's pleased with her gift copy of the biography Maria Shriver wrote about her late father, Sargent Shriver.

"That's it. That's all I've managed to get," Matthews said. "I'll just be happy if I get his signature on some of my legislation. That's all I'm asking for."

Social cigar smokers still at risk for cancer

Part-time smoking will still increase your risk for mouth, lip, tongue and throat cancers.

By Jeff Arnold
News-Leader
Published June 22, 2004

Like many cigar afficionados, Rob Hulstra doesn't actually consider himself a smoker.

Other than the prized rolls of packed tobacco he keeps in his humidor at home, Hulstra doesn't use any other smoke products.

He spent his childhood dodging the cigarette smoke that filtered from his parents' mouths, and he still prefers to eat in a restaurant's nonsmoking section.

But oh, how he enjoys one of his favorite cigars, which he smokes on the weekends and occasionally as part of a group that meets weekly at one of Springfield's trendy cigar bars.

"It's a social thing and kind of a relaxation thing," Hulstra said. "I can be listening to a ballgame in the backyard or fishing or canoeing — there's just something about the aroma (of a cigar) that I just like."

For that, Hulstra can thank his grandfather, who introduced him to cigars. Now, Hulstra is a bit of a connoisseur, comparing labels and the bold tastes he enjoys with his cigar-loving friends.

"It's kind of a bonding thing," said Hulstra, who estimates his cigar intake at about six a month.

As far as cigars go, the marketing plan is clear to a country where 3.8 million cigars were smoked in 2001. Cigars are hip — especially among young men and women. There are magazines for cigar smokers. There are bars built specifically for cigar smokers, complete with posh leather chairs and a social environment that spells l-u-x-u-r-i-o-u-s.

"That's a dangerous message," said Angie Wilson, a registered nurse at St. Johns Medical Center and the coordinator of the hospital's Road to Freedom Smoking Cessation program.

"People think it's OK because I don't smoke every day. They'll say, 'I'm not really a smoker — I only do it socially.'"

An alcoholic beverage tends to make a cigarette or cigar taste better, according to Wilson, who deals with social smokers on a regular basis as part of St. Johns' program.

Social smokers, Wilson said, tend to light up when they're around friends or while drinking. Otherwise — like Hulstra — they never smoke.

Wilson says there are some serious misconceptions that accompany the idea of social smoking, the category that most cigar users fall into.

They figure because they don't smoke as often as regular smokers that their risk of cancer is lower. Cigar smokers use the popular justification of saying they don't inhale and therefore aren't at risk like cigarette smokers.

"There is some inhalation that takes place to get that stuff in their mouth," Wilson said.

There's also that period of time when cigar smokers hold the smoke in their mouths, enjoying the taste — and getting a dose of nicotine.

By doing so, however, cigar smokers become twice as likely as other smokers of getting cancer of the mouth, lip, tongue or throat, Wilson said. The nicotine — which is higher in cigars than it is in cigarettes — filters through the blood vessels in the mouth and gets into the bloodstream, eventually making its way to the heart.

The only safe dosage of tobacco, Wilson says, is none at all.

According to the National Cancer Institute, about three-quarters of cigar smokers are occasional users, meaning they typically don't light up on a daily basis.

However, large cigars — which can measure up to more than six inches in length — contain between five and 17 grams of tobacco. A cigarette normally includes less than one gram of tobacco, meaning that smoking one large cigar can equate to consuming a full pack of cigarettes.

But for Hulstra, who has been smoking cigars off and on since high school, the enjoyment he finds in a fine cigar outweighs his concerns over cancer. He doesn't think smoking two or three cigars a week will make "that much of a difference."

After all, conflicting reports of what causes cancer — and what doesn't — lead him to continue to smoke in moderation.

"I only smoke one at a time," Hulstra says jokingly, repeating an old line commonly used by cigar lover George Burns.

"Life is tough enough. Everyone needs a creature comfort ... some people have sports cars and get together with other car lovers. With cigars, you get together and compare a latest buy with your friends. There's kind of a novelty to it."

Schwarzenegger, Confident and Ready for Prime Time 

June 24, 2004

 By CHARLIE LeDUFF and JOHN M. BRODER

SACRAMENTO, June 23 - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has dazzled California with a string of legislative victories in his first months in office, has shown that he may well be a political master after all. And now he is letting President Bush know just how much he is - and is not - ready to devote his full star power to the national re-election effort.

Mr. Schwarzenegger, in an interview in the Bedouin-style smoking tent he has set up in the courtyard of the State Capitol here - smoking is banned in state buildings – made it clear that he expected a prominent role at the Republican National Convention in New York in late August.

"Whether I'm speaking, I'll leave that up to them," said Mr. Schwarzenegger, a global celebrity who has emerged as perhaps the most intriguing new Republican face of the political season. "If they're smart, they'll have me obviously in prime time."

But Mr. Schwarzenegger, who has been defining himself as a moderate, also made it clear that when prime time is over, he intends to keep some distance from Mr. Bush, who is not particularly popular in Democratic-leaning California.

Mr. Schwarzenegger said that while he would appear with Mr. Bush if the president comes to California, he had no plans to travel outside of the state to stump for him. "If I start flying around and not spending time here, it could backfire big time," he said, adding that Californians elected him to be their full-time governor and that he was not going to risk his standing by devoting himself to national politics.

Not that it is clear that anyone is asking. Terry Holt, spokesman for the Bush re-election committee, said simply that the convention program was not complete and that Mr. Schwarzenegger's role was not yet decided. He quickly added that the campaign was "thrilled" to have Mr. Schwarzenegger's support.

No one has ever accused Mr. Schwarzenegger, no matter what role he is in, of lacking self-confidence, and the governor himself knows that both his celebrity and his superhero screen image are at the core of his distinctive and so far successful political style. Asked to describe his governing philosophy seven months after toppling Gray Davis in California's recall election, he said, "Crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentations of their women."

He stopped himself. "Wait a minute, that's Conan," he said. "I stepped out of character here for a second."

The governor, his skin and hair the color of a tarnished brass bed, his pectoral muscles testing the strength of his shirt buttons, is clearly a man enjoying himself and at ease with power. He said he had not encountered any major surprises in his latest career and found himself fully engaged in public policy. The biggest adjustment, he said, is learning to live with a schedule drawn up for him by others.

He said he met with 20 to 30 people every day while making time for weight lifting and riding a stationary bike in his Sacramento hotel room each morning. "People who know me really well thought that this would be pure torture for me because I don't like to keep schedules, I like to live in an improvisational style," he said. "Appointments are always a no-no. Planning ahead is a no-no. Here you have to do all the opposite. Here you need to have a plan."

He said that after the budget was passed he planned to turn his attention to revamping the state's troubled energy supply system and to streamlining state government, which he refers to as "blowing up boxes."

Flashing a jade ring as he talked, he ruminated on his introduction to government, in the 15-by-15-foot courtyard tent where he does much of his private business. It is decorated with rattan chairs, orchids, a humidor, a mirror, floor fan and books written by Mr. Schwarzenegger.

There was an expensive, half-burned cigar in a Baccarat crystal ashtray. The tent itself was placed precisely 20 feet from the doors leading to the governor's offices to comply with state smoking regulations.

Mr. Schwarzenegger said business lessons he learned in Hollywood applied directly to running the nation's most populous state. Success, he said, requires a combination of discipline, optimism, humor, a willingness to share credit and good cigars and an ability to cut back-room deals.

He defended his practice of negotiating key sections of important legislation and the budget behind closed doors or in his smoke-filled tent.

He learned it all in Hollywood. After all, in Hollywood, he said, "For the public you write agreements and then you have another agreement they put in the safe that no one is seeing - the thing with all the perks and the percentages because they do not want to break the mold and all of a sudden now here's a guy who gets instead of 15 percent, 20 percent in the gross. Then that'll be kept in the safe.

"Or that I get instead of a 30-foot trailer, a 40-foot trailer. That could break the mold and then every star wants a 40-foot trailer. That is then in the safe, that is never in the agreement, O.K.?"

That is, in Hollywood as in Sacramento, certain things are said for public consumption. Other things are understood. By any measure, Mr. Schwarzenegger has pulled off a remarkable series of victories since routing Mr. Davis. He repealed an unpopular increase in the car tax, rescinded a law granting driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, pushed a workers' compensation package through the Legislature and persuaded the voters to approve $15 billion in new borrowing to help balance the budget.

This week, he signed an agreement with five Indian tribes that will bring the state more than $1 billion in casino revenues immediately and hundreds of millions more in the future.

Next week, he confidently predicted, the Legislature will deliver to him the first on-time state budget in 19 years. He has managed all this while keeping his firm pledge not to raise taxes.

In the interview, he diplomatically spread the credit among Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike. "I'm not here trying to be a dictator," he said.

Critics say the governor's tactics may address immediate political and fiscal problems but are creating bigger debts down the road. Mr. Schwarzenegger negotiated budget concessions from state colleges and universities, from K-12 educators and from local governments in exchange for more money for them in future years.

The independent Legislative Analysts Office here has warned that these deals will produce multibillion-dollar deficits far into the future and will only worsen the state's chronic mismatch between revenues and spending.

Mr. Schwarzenegger waved off such carping. "Guys, don't worry," he said with a grin. "You see me worry? It'll be taken care of. It's a piece of cake."

The governor departs Sacramento most Fridays and conducts weekend business in Los Angeles, commuting by private jet. Weekends are reserved for his wife, Maria Shriver, and their four school-aged children. The family attends Catholic services most Sundays.

Mr. Schwarzenegger describes himself as a moderate on social issues, including abortion, making him another Roman Catholic political figure at odds at times with the hierarchy of his church. Some bishops have suggested that Catholic public officials who support abortion rights should be denied communion.

He said he understood the bishops' point of view and said the church faced a dilemma in dealing with the thorny realities of modern life, including abortion, gay rights and marriage in the priesthood. "No matter what the debate is I will continue believing in God," he said.

On fiscal matters, Mr. Schwarzenegger considers himself an old-school Republican determined to ferret out waste. No item is too minor to escape his attention.

For instance, since Mr. Schwarzenegger took office on Nov. 17, the toilet paper in the Capitol has been switched from two-ply to one-ply, a saving of thousands of dollars over the years. "It's not anymore the two-ply," he said. "Because you know what? We're trimming. We're living within our means."

THE STATE
Antismoking Legislation Is Rekindled

Bill that would ban drivers from lighting up in cars carrying young children is approved by a Senate panel. The issue was considered dead two weeks ago.

By Gabrielle Banks, Times Staff Writer

SACRAMENTO — A state Senate committee approved legislation Wednesday to prohibit drivers from smoking in cars if young children are passengers, reviving a contentious debate between privacy advocates and antismoking groups.

The legislation was thought to be dead only two weeks ago, when a similar bill failed to get support from moderate Democrats in the Assembly. But fellow Democrats in the Senate, upset the measure was killed, are trying again to push it through the Legislature and onto Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's desk.

"It's time to take a stand and protect children beyond what their parents are willing to do," said Sen. Deborah Ortiz (D-Sacramento), who co-authored the new bill, AB 1569, along with its original sponsor, Assemblyman Marco Firebaugh (D-South Gate).

The new legislation adds a public education campaign about the dangers of smoking near children and would take effect in 2006, a year later than originally proposed. Motorists lighting up with a passenger who is younger than 6 or who weighs less than 60 pounds would receive a warning and thereafter be fined $25 if a law enforcement officer caught them in the act.

Firebaugh said the bill aimed to protect children small enough to be required to ride in car seats and too young to speak effectively for themselves. He noted that Californians do not complain that officers enforcing the state's seat belt mandate are invading people's privacy.

"We wanted to make sure that the most vulnerable were protected," he said.

After a brief presentation by Firebaugh on Wednesday, the measure passed the Senate Health and Human Services Committee with a 9-2 vote. The legislation is also expected to pass the full Senate and then head back to the Assembly, where Firebaugh must pick up at least four votes from lawmakers. His original measure died on a 37-30 vote two weeks ago; it needed at least 41.

It's unclear where Schwarzenegger stands on the issue; he does not normally take positions on pending legislation. But the governor is an avid cigar smoker who has a special tent in his office courtyard because smoking inside the Capitol is illegal.

Assemblyman Keith Richman (R-Northridge), a physician who voted against the original measure, said he had "absolutely no question" about the hazardous effects of secondhand smoke. However, Richman and others still question whether the law would be unnecessarily intrusive.

"What would we do next?" Richman asked. "Outlaw it in people's garages? In their houses?"

Another opponent, Assemblywoman Lynn Daucher (R-Brea) said her objections have not changed. She said she uses this proposal to teach school kids who visit her office about government intervention. "Kids automatically say they would vote for it," Daucher said, but then she asks them what other laws they might support. "Should government decide whether they should eat liver for dinner?"

According to the American Lung Assn., 20 of the 30 lawmakers who opposed Firebaugh's original bill received campaign contributions from the tobacco industry over the last two years.

For decades, health-conscious California has broadened the boundaries of antismoking laws, advocating the rights of nonsmokers in public places. California has led the nation with laws banning smoking in bars, workplaces, outside government buildings and on playgrounds, though many smokers and privacy advocates were incensed when the laws were introduced.

The Environmental Protection Agency classifies secondhand smoke as a known carcinogen and estimates that each year 150,000 to 300,000 children younger than 18 months who are exposed to the smoke contract pneumonia or bronchitis.

Organizations with differing views on this bill — the American Lung Assn. and Philip Morris USA — agree that cigarette smoke can cause lung cancer and heart disease in adults, and asthma, respiratory infections and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in children.

But Philip Morris USA has lobbied actively against the bill, spokeswoman Jamie Drogan said. "The company believes adults should avoid smoking around children when in private vehicles, but we do not believe this is something that should be legislated."

California sends fresh air to beaches across the world

By Marjie Lundstrom -- Bee Columnist
Published 2:15 am PDT Saturday, June 5, 2004

The e-mail was straightforward with a dash of desperation.

HELP ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I live at the Jersey Shore. I want a SMOKE FREE Beach. What do I do, how do I start???

Lauren M. Nolan, a 45-year-old Manahawkin, N.J., office store manager who lives six miles from Long Beach Island, isn't kidding about this.

And she's looking to California for answers.

Once again, our trend-setting state is making waves.

Since Solana Beach north of San Diego became the first to go smoke-free last fall, this bold new anti-smoking movement has rapidly spread - wafting, like cigarette smoke, across the state and around the globe.

Other oceanfront communities, among them San Clemente, Santa Monica, Los Angeles and Malibu, have followed, banning smoking from their glistening shorelines.

For many, the move has been more about litter than secondhand smoke as beach-lovers draw a line in the sand over butts. Beyond the obvious - who wants their kids excavating used cigarettes for their sand castles? - the stubs also pollute the ocean and harm marine life.

The state is also diving in with a bill by Assemblyman Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, that would ban cigarettes on all state beaches - 1,100 miles of shoreline.

Robert Berger, chairman of the Los Angeles County Smoke-Free Beach Task Force, can't quite believe the momentum over just a few months.

"Am I surprised? Yes," said Berger, who has fielded numerous inquires and tracked the global coverage. "But what I think this speaks to is that there are a lot of people who recognize this problem - have been thinking about it, worrying about it - and all they needed was a spark. A catalyst.

"I think California provided that."

One of those to contact Berger was Jay Maddock, a public health professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. As chairman of the Coalition for a Tobacco Free Hawaii, Maddock believes the successes in California stubbing out smoking on public beaches will "definitely lead the way for us."

He believes Kauai and Maui are prime initial targets, given the large percentage of visitors from California. More difficult, he predicts, will be the fabled Waikiki Beach on Oahu, which attracts many visitors from Japan, where smoking is more accepted.

Not all the interest has come from oceanfront communities. A St. Paul, Minn., advocate wrote Berger to say that some public parks and lakefront beaches have adopted smoking prohibitions, and that efforts in the Golden State have "Minnesota inspired."

The good vibrations in California are also being felt globally.

Last month, as Santa Monica's ban went into effect, two of Australia's most popular and picturesque beaches enacted their own bans - a first for that country. The Sydney suburb of Manly was first to outlaw smoking on its famous beach; Bondi soon followed.

Molly Robson, national chair of the Keep Australia Beautiful Council, couldn't hand all the credit to California - "we have our independence," she says, chuckling.

"But it certainly does help when you've gathered the statistics and built the case."

Robson, a former environment minister for the government, predicts that banning smoking on these pristine coastal stretches will spread until "all eventually roll over."

The existing bans are both in New South Wales, but she'd like to see action soon in Queensland and the Great Barrier Reef.

"And it's starting to happen," she says. "Once it's an established fact, others will be courageous enough to do it."

Across the world in New Jersey, Lauren Nolan is expecting a bit more resistance.

After all, there is that "New Jersey mentality," says the Garden State native. "We're not as easygoing as California."

No matter. Nolan thinks this California-sent gust of fresh air is just right for the Jersey shore - and especially for her beloved Long Beach Island, where she spent her childhood.

She's going to work for a ban.

"It's a totally different mentality, but that's OK," she says. "Somebody's got to try."

Reach Marjie Lundstrom at (916) 321-1055 or mlundstrom@sacbee.com. Back columns: www.sacbee.com/lundstrom

Smoking ban urged on beaches

Bill's author says it would curb litter on state shorelines, but critics say sweeping plan goes too far.

By Jim Sanders -- Bee Capitol Bureau
Published 2:15 am PDT Monday, May 31, 2004

Coming soon to California, perhaps: buttless beaches.

The state's latest assault on smoking would ban cigarettes on all state beaches, encompassing 1,100 miles of shoreline visited by 35 million people per year.

Assemblyman Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, introduced the anti-smoking proposal Friday as a crackdown on millions of cigarette butts that foul sandy beaches and pollute coastal waterways.

But critics immediately blasted the legislation, introduced as amendments to AB 1808, as a significant shift in tobacco prohibitions because it targets a vast outdoor area.

Previous smoking bans have tended to focus on the interiors of buildings, such as restaurants, schools and state offices; or on small confined spaces, such as tot lots, airplanes or buses.

Yee said his goal is to curb litter that is a constant frustration of beachgoers, hard to remove from sandy shore fronts and can be swallowed by children and animals.

"It seems to me that we don't have enough resources to keep our beaches clean," Yee said. "So if there's a way to prevent the dumping of this garbage, these cigarette butts, we should do that."

But critics say AB 1808 represents a major new step in governmental smoking restrictions whose ultimate goal is to ban smoking entirely or to make it nearly impossible to find a permissible public place to light up.

The new measure follows unsuccessful efforts to prohibit wafting tobacco smoke in apartment complexes, ban smoking in cars when children are present and allow fines ranging from $3,400 to $20,400 for illegally dumping cigarette butts.

"I absolutely think that's the goal - to basically outlaw tobacco," said Assemblyman John Campbell, R-Irvine. "What it's really about is civil liberties. ... They ought to be straight up about it and say they want to make possession or sale of tobacco a felony."

Yee said he's not part of any grand plan to discourage smoking. Beachfront smoking is environmentally hazardous and a nuisance to passers-by forced to inhale secondhand smoke, he said.

"For me, this bill is not about curtailing people's right to smoke," he said.

"This is America, it's a free country, and if you want to smoke, you can smoke. But you can't leave negative consequences on our environment."

California law currently permits smoking on state beaches, but anyone caught discarding a cigarette butt is subject to a minimum fine of $100 for a first offense.

Yee's bill would make smoking illegal on the state's 62 beaches.

First-time offenders could be fined $150 for smoking and an equal amount for dumping their cigarette or cigar butts.

The National Conference of State Legislatures knows of no other state that has banned smoking on beaches.

Most people interviewed randomly along Sacramento's K Street Mall supported AB 1808 - including five of six smokers approached.

"If they can't clean it up, they shouldn't be able to do it," said Steve Sanford, 50, an occasional cigar smoker from Placerville.

"Cigarettes get into the oceans and water - and that isn't cool," added Bryan Young, a 20-year-old smoker from North Highlands.

Nathaniel Eddins, 49, of Sacramento said he doesn't smoke and doesn't think beachgoers should, either.

"Smoking isn't good for nobody," he said. "It's a deadly disease that needs to be stopped. It stunts your growth. It messes your whole system up."

Cigarette butts have been a ubiquitous problem on California's beaches.

More than 300,000 cigarette butts were collected during last year's California Coastal Cleanup Day, a three-hour sweep of beaches, shorelines and other such areas.

Several Southern California communities have banned smoking on local beaches, including Malibu, Santa Monica, Los Angeles, San Clemente in Orange County and Solana Beach in San Diego County.

Tristan McLaughlin, who has assisted in shoreline cleanups, said cigarette butts represent 90 percent of beachfront garbage.

"Cigarettes butts are next to the cars, they're in the sand, they're in the water - you can fill bags and bags with them," said McLaughlin, whose daughters founded a youth activist group, Cause We Care, that suggested the beachfront ban to Yee.

"Let's not have kids using cigarette butts to build their sand castles anymore," said Mayor Jim Vreeland of Pacifica. "Let's get them off the beach."

Jim Metropulos, legislative representative for Sierra Club California, said beaches make a particularly ripe target for litterers. "You're out on the beach, sitting on a towel, and how many receptacles are out there?" he asked. "Where do people put their butts? They stick them in the sand."

Advocates say the bill would send a much-needed message to smokers, even if it wouldn't lead to a flurry of new citations.

AB 1808 provides no additional funding for littering enforcement that has been spotty at best in years past: About 40 citations were issued on state beaches in 2002, according to an Assembly analysis of AB 1808.

Yee's bill would not apply to federal beaches or to community shorelines, such as Discovery Park or the American River Parkway.

As written, AB 1808 also would not apply to state recreation areas, such as Folsom Lake, that are not designated as state beaches.

Yee may consider adding state-controlled lakes or reservoirs in future amendments to AB 1808, an aide said.

Audrey Silk, founder of a New York City smokers' rights group, noted that beaches are littered with cans, paper cups, diapers and numerous other unsightly discards - but AB 1808 targets only cigarettes.

Silk said complaints about secondhand smoke are ironic, coming from beachgoers tanning themselves with potentially cancer-causing ultraviolet rays from the sun.

"It goes too far," she said of AB 1808.

John Singleton, spokesman for the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., said AB 1808 is representative of a trend in which "smokers are an easy target."

"When you're talking about (banning) smoking outside, where there's wind and openness, where people who don't want to be around smoke don't have to be, that's over the top and excessive," he said.

Ned Roscoe, president of discount cigarette chain Cigarettes Cheaper! said Yee's law would do nothing about the source of most cigarettes on state beaches - storm drains.

"It's stupid," Roscoe said of AB 1808. "When you can't enforce the laws you already have, it's kind of silly to add new ones."

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