Clinton targets tobacco ads

BY GLENN THRUSH | Newsday Washington Bureau

July 21, 2006

WASHINGTON - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has glimpsed the future and sees a world where corporations implant tiny microchips into children's brains to bombard the littlest consumers with intracranial commercials.

Clinton was decrying candy-flavored cigarettes and youth-targeted tobacco ads in Washington yesterday, when she took a slight detour into the political twilight zone.

"At the rate that technology is advancing, you know, people will be implanting chips in our children to advertise directly into their brains and tell them what kind of products to buy," Clinton (D-N.Y.), who didn't appear to be joking, said at a Kaiser Family Foundation forum on media and children.

Implanted microchips are used almost exclusively for medical purposes. But scientists are tinkering with other commercial uses.

The former first lady has co-sponsored a bill with Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) to study the impact of marketing and advertising on kids.

"We are living in an advertising-saturated, media-intense environment," Clinton said. "I think it's fair to say that we are conducting an experiment on our children."

Clinton's principal target yesterday were advertisers. She singled out the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. for producing citrus, berry and toffee-flavored cigarettes for the "Joe Camel" demographic.

"It is just unacceptable for any company to push candy-flavored cigarettes and cigarette ad campaigns targeted at teens," she said.

"Bravo, Hillary," said Joel Spivak, spokesman for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, a Washington-based anti-tobacco group.

R.J. Reynolds spokesman Fred McConnell called Clinton's remarks "inflammatory" and said his company only markets to adults.