Fisher: A year later, the tobacco war still isn't won

A year ago this week, I was celebrating with health advocates across the country when they won their 20-year battle to get the federal government to regulate dumb and deadly cigarettes. I can't believe it took that long to convince Congress that nicotine, the powerful addictive drug in tobacco, should be treated like any other drug sold to the public.
After years of marketing cancer sticks to kids and denying that they manipulated the amount of nicotine in their products to hook smokers, shameless tobacco companies at last had to answer to the Food and Drug Administration. They were given a year to stop their clever tricks such as making candy-flavored smokes and using labels like "light" and "low-tar" to make cigarettes sound less harmful.
On Tuesday, the new rules will take effect. But those devoted to the anti-smoking cause know the toxic battles are far from over. With a $12.8 billion marketing budget, tobacco companies will find subtle new ways to attract new smokers.
"They are always just one step ahead of us," said Margo Sidener of Breathe California. "The tobacco companies have the best advertising people in the world, unfortunately."
Smoking on the screen
It doesn't help that cigarette makers get lots of free advertising in movies and on TV. When Sigourney Weaver infamously puffed on a cigarette in "Avatar," it wasn't just a ridiculous endorsement of smoking for the most massive worldwide audience of children and adults ever. Worse, it made no sense. This is supposed to be the future. Do we really think that brilliant scientists will be smoking in their labs in outer space?
In the Bay Area, we live in a smoke-free bubble, as I'm darkly reminded whenever I travel to other parts of the country. It's unsettling to walk into a hazy restaurant and be asked if I want a smoking or nonsmoking table. Or to check into a hotel and find out there are only slightly smelly smoking rooms available. Another reason to be happy to get back home.
While 20 percent of American adults smoke, the number in Santa Clara County is only 10 percent.
And because so many local cities ban smoking in business districts and other public places, smokers have been forced underground.
More kids are puffing
Still, the number of county teens who smoke has inched back up to 13 percent, from a low of 9.5 percent in 2004. And smokeless tobacco, which can cause mouth cancer, is catching on with high school boys.
"I think the public has the misconception that because they don't see as many kids out there smoking, that they aren't doing it," Sidener said. "But they are."
The county recently received a $7 million federal grant for tobacco education. Unfortunately, it's still pretty easy for local kids to buy cigarettes. One way our cities could deal with that problem would be to require stores that sell tobacco to be licensed. Then, if they got caught selling to kids, they would lose the right and the revenue.
And there still is a lot more that the FDA could do. I would like to see the agency exercise its new, long-overdue power by limiting the amount of nicotine in tobacco products to make them less addictive, just as it decrees how much codeine there is in prescription cough medicine.
That way if kids start smoking because they think it's cool, at least they'll be able to quit when they realize it's killing them.