Crusading Against A Camel

Cambridge drugstore owner Roberta Crowley Gottlieb is fuming about cigarette advertisements that she claims are targeted at children.

The subject of this woman's ire is a smoking camel named Cool Joe, the cartoon character that has been the centerpiece of a catchy ad campaign by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company.

Crowley Gottlieb first began her crusade against Camel cigarettes after she read a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study reported that the ad campaign was appealing to teenagers and children and that more children recognized Cool Joe than adults.

On December 11, 1991, Crowley Gottlieb pulled Camel cigarettes of the shelves of he two drugstores, Huron Drug on Huron Avenue and Shepard Drug on Shepard and Mass. Avenues.

"There has been an overwhelming response," Crowley Gottlieb says.

A few weeks later, corporate giant R. J. Reynolds took notice and asked Crowley Gottlieb to stop the boycott.

The company told her that the "news media was biased against the tobacco industry," she says.

Despite the tobacco company's appeals, she refused to end her protest of the popular cigarettes.

Last Saturday, Crowley Gottlieb sent a petition to R.J. Reynolds with more than 1000 signatures supporting her stance. She collected the signatures from Boston and Cambridge residents shopping at her stores.

Crowley Gottlieb contends that RJ and non-smokers alike are outraged by the ad campaign's direct appeal to "vulnerable" children. She says even a person who worked on the ad campaign signed the petition.

"The use of illustration in advertising is enormous. It has passed the use of celebrity-endorsers in adult advertising," says Maura T. Payne, an R.J. Reynolds spokesperson.

The Cool Joe camel is the same character that the company has used for the past 79 years, only "updated for the '90s," says Payne.

But Payne denies that the Cool Joe campaign is targeted at young people.

The company even says that it is extremely involved in several efforts to reduce the number of children who smoke. R.J. Reynolds says it has launched several youth non-smoking campaigns.

But Payne acknowledges that the retailer is the primary checkpoint for preventing children under 18 from purchasing cigarettes.

In response to Crowley Gottlieb's charges, Payne says the Journal of the American Medical Association articles were of "very poor quality" and that researchers in several universities have found the studies to be "significantly flawed."

The article made "ludicrous contentions" about Camel cigarettes and the study was not "properly controlled," she said.

But Crowley Gottlieb says she isn't simply relying on the news media; she can draw on 20 years of experience in the drugstore business.

Camel cigarettes were the second best-selling cigarettes in her store and they are the third leading cigarette in the nation, says Crowley Gottlieb. Young smokers smoke Camel cigarettes, she says.

Crowley Gottlieb encourages people to continue signing the petitions in her drugstores.

"The more people who sign the petition, the sooner R.J. Reynolds will get the message," she says.

And the petitions will not be the end of her fight. Crowley Gottlieb plans to send a letter to all the pharmacists and businesses in Cambridge asking them to boycott Camel cigarettes.

Last month, the City Council passed a resolution supporting he crusade against Cool Joe.

Cool Joe could not be reached for comment.