海角大神

鈥淚 took back my freedom.鈥� So says actress Jenny McCarthy, in a recent TV ad for an e-cigarette. Heating a nicotine-laced liquid so that the user inhales vapor, not smoke, e-cigarettes are being sold as a safe alternative to the regular kind.

That might 鈥� or might not 鈥� be true, for adults. But teenagers are another story. Last week, a report published in JAMA Pediatrics found that teens who used e-cigarettes were more likely to smoke tobacco cigarettes and more likely to progress from experimenting with cigarettes to becoming regular smokers 鈥� and heavier smokers at that. The study also found that these teens were more likely to be planning to quit tobacco cigarettes but less likely to have actually done so. The study concluded: "The use of e-cigarettes does not discourage, and may encourage, conventional cigarette use among U.S. adolescents."

Yet America still lets the e-cigarette industry advertise to teenagers, whose use of e-cigarettes doubled from 2011 to 2012. Companies sell the product in kid-friendly flavors such as chocolate, gummy bear, and pumpkin spice. Television ads feature celebrities like Ms. McCarthy, while one popular brand has adopted a cartoon character called 鈥淢r. Cool.鈥�

Of course, e-cigarette businesses say that none of these strategies are designed to lure young users. But that鈥檚 what the regular cigarette industry said, too, for nearly a century. Its history says something else.

Start with candy cigarettes, which became a craze in the mid-20th century. Wary of bad publicity, tobacco companies didn鈥檛 sponsor candy cigarettes directly. They instead let the candy industry copy cigarette brands and logos, turning a blind eye to copyright infringements.

鈥淲e have never raised any objection to the use of our labels feeling, for your more or less private information, that it is not too bad an advertisement,鈥� one tobacco industry lawyer wrote to a candy manufacturer in 1946, as recorded in Stanford professor Robert N. Proctor鈥檚 book 鈥淕olden Holocaust: Origins of the Cigarette Catastrophe and the Case for Abolition.鈥�

Although it was illegal to sell tobacco to children, meanwhile, the industry secretly targeted them in its own ad campaigns. 鈥淪chool days are here,鈥� an R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company official told sales managers in 1927. 鈥淎nd that means BIG TOBACCO BUSINESS for somebody. Let鈥檚 get it 鈥� and start after it RIGHT NOW.鈥�

In the 1960s, as criticism of the industry mounted, tobacco companies pledged to stop marketing to people under 21. Behind the scenes, however, they continued to seek young customers. In 1973, one Reynolds researcher suggested searching high school history textbooks to find people and images that teens would recognize, which could then be adopted for brand names. At Lorrillard, manufacturer of the the popular Newport brand, an official admitted, 鈥渢he base of our business is the high school student.鈥�

The best way to enlist young smokers was to promise them the pleasure and independence of adulthood. By defining smoking as an 鈥渁dult鈥� activity, indeed, tobacco companies were able to keep targeting kids.

鈥淚n the young smoker鈥檚 mind a cigarette falls into the same category with wine, beer, shaving, wearing a bra (or purposely not wearing one,)鈥� an advertising agency advised a tobacco client in 1975. 鈥淭he cigarette is the entrance ticket to the hall of the adult society.鈥�

The industry also used cartoons like the now-notorious 鈥淛oe Camel,鈥� a hip dromedary who helped Camel raise its share of the under-18 cigarette market from less than 1 percent in 1987 to 33 percent in 1990. 鈥淛oe Camel is Also Pied Piper,鈥� a Wall Street Journal headline blared in 1991.

Tobacco companies agreed to stop advertising with cartoons in 1998, as part of a huge lawsuit settlement. Nor can they flavor their cigarettes, following a 2009 Food And Drug Administration ruling that fruit, candy, and clover flavors have 鈥渟pecial appeal for children.鈥� They can鈥檛 use celebrities in their ads. And of course, cigarette advertising has been banned from TV for more than 40 years.

Yet e-cigarette companies get to engage in all of these practices, without almost no regulation at all. Last month, Senate Democrats introduced a bill to prevent e-cigarette businesses from targeting young customers. 鈥淲hen it comes to the marketing of e-cigarettes to children and teens, it鈥檚 鈥楯oe Camel鈥� all over again,鈥� warned one sponsor, Sen. Tom Harkin (D) of Iowa.

Actually, it might be worse than that. Joe Camel advertised a product that most people knew was harmful, even if they didn鈥檛 act in accordance with that knowledge. By contrast, e-cigarettes are being touted as a way to quit smoking.

For teens, it seems to be the other way around: A product advertising 鈥渇reedom鈥� makes them more likely to use a highly addictive one. How, then, can Americans let the e-cigarette companies freely market to our youth? We need to stop them with some strong regulations, just like we did with regular cigarettes, lest they enchain a new cohort of kids in a prison of smoke. It鈥檚 happened before.

Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history and education at New York University. His most recent book is 鈥淪mall Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory鈥� (Yale University Press).