Community Leaders Speak Out Against Big Tobacco

Big Tobacco Company Has Focus Group Planned for Duluth

DULUTH, Minn. – It’s an email that Duluth Mayor Emily Larson was quoted as saying was “Shady to begin with,” and Community Action Duluth said was “unprecedented.”

A big tobacco company has reportedly been looking to schedule a focus group about “America’s dwindling middle class.”

And at a press conference earlier this morning, representatives with the American Lung Association and other local community leaders had to speak out.

Speakers at the press conference say Altria, the parent company of Philip Morris, is planning the visit to Duluth for later this month.

They say they believe the company is still trying to target low income families to sell tobacco products.

“Altria is a company that could care less about the health and well-being of the middle class,” said Pat McKone, Regional Senior Director of the American Lung Association in Duluth.  “What they care about is how they can market to that middle class.”

Angie Miller, the Executive Director of Community Action Duluth, said she was one of the first to receive an email from the Mr. Susan Works agency.

It took a little research for her to figure out that it was Altria sending those emails.

“I said, ‘Absolutely not!’ And in hindsight, I feel like if I hadn’t realized what it was and then they came, I think it would have been the biggest mistake of my career,” Miller said.

Annie Harala, At Large member of the Duluth School Board gave an emotional response to Altria’s request for this focus group.

“They’re trying to sell us a lie,” Harala said.  “They’re trying to get us to buy into their marketing ploy and at the end of the day we don’t do that as Duluth, do we?”

Members of the Duluth NAACP were also on hand to speak against tobacco products that are marketed specifically for African American youths.

Stefan Witherspoon, from the Duluth branch of the NAACP, says menthol cigarettes are specifically marketed to African Americans, and he will not stand for it in his neighborhood or his city.