Ignite California

Everyone knows that the tobacco industry is evil and markets its products to our generation. That’s why for the past five years, with our peers all over the country, we have launched a direct assault on the tobacco companies. We’ve had sit-ins outside their offices, aired commercials exposing their lies, coordinated letter campaigns to fill their mail rooms, and aimed tons of other efforts at getting the tobacco industry to change its ways.

But what have we accomplished? Tobacco companies are spending more money than ever on marketing. In many states, the youth smoking rates that began to drop in the 90’s are on the rise again. Tobacco remains the only consumable product in the United States that is not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. Only four states are spending enough money on prevention to solve this crisis. Tobacco is still killing 1,000 Americans a day.

So what does all of this tell us? In short, “targeting the targeters” just doesn’t work. In our country, you don’t go after an industry to get it to change. Why? Because companies are not accountable to the public. They don’t have to listen to a damn thing we say. But guess who they do have to listen to? That’s right: Public Officials! Governors, Legislatures, Congress, The President. They all have enormous influence over how the tobacco industry does business.

That’s cool, right? But wait - there’s more. All of those powerful officials I just mentioned…guess who they work for??? Right again! They work for us, for you and for me! So, the answer is simple. If we want tobacco companies to stop targeting our generation and killing Americans, we have to force our public officials to take action, and that’s exactly why we formed Ignite. Forget targeting the targeters. We’re targeting the decision makers.

ignitegeneration.org