Magazines Containing Tobacco Advertisements: Proscription Not Subscription

To the Editor.  —The tobacco industry has adopted an advertising and marketing strategy that relies on beautiful, young, healthy-looking people engaged in activities that appear to be fun and exciting. Magazine advertising is used extensively by the tobacco industry. The 2 most heavily advertised brands, Camel and Marlboro, are the brands most often smoked by underage teen smokers.¹ Joe Camel is as often recognized by 6-year-olds as representing a brand of cigarettes as Mickey Mouse ears are recognized as representing the Disney Channel.² Not only is tobacco advertising in magazines used to attract young smokers, it has been theorized to affect editorial policy for some magazines leading to fewer stories about the health effects of smoking heavily advertised brands.³Most hospitals and medical offices in the United States subscribe to magazines but probably do not pay much attention to the advertisements they contain. In the past, JAMA