Virginia Kids 'Kick Butts' on April 2( New Poll: Teens Still Feel Target...),Health

New Poll: Teens Still Feel Targeted By Tobacco Advertising and Find It Easy to Buy Cigarettes

WASHINGTON, March 27 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Kids across Virginia will rally against tobacco on April 2 as they join thousands of young people nationwide for the 13th annual Kick Butts Day, sponsored by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. Hundreds of events are planned across the nation (for a list of local events, go to http://www.kickbuttsday.org/events).

This year, Kick Butts Day is raising awareness about continued tobacco marketing and sales to kids and the need for Congress to crack down on these harmful practices by passing legislation granting the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authority to regulate tobacco products.

Ten years after the 1998 state tobacco settlement, a new poll conducted for Kick Butts Day 2008 finds that kids still feel targeted by tobacco advertising and still find it easy to buy tobacco products. The national telephone survey of 507 teens (12-17 year olds) and 1,008 adults found:

-- Three-fourths of teens (74 percent) think tobacco companies want them to smoke, and 70 percent think tobacco companies target them with their advertising.

-- Teens are twice as likely as adults to remember tobacco advertising. While almost half (47 percent) of teens recalled tobacco advertising from the last two weeks before the survey, only 24 percent of adults did. Among teens who recalled tobacco advertising, the most commonly mentioned source was "in or outside a store."

-- Nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of teens think it is easy for teenagers to buy tobacco products. Among 15-17 year olds, 76 percent think it is easy.

The survey was conducted March 5-10, 2008, by International Communications Research and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points for the teen survey and 3.1 percentage points for the adult s
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