States sue Reynolds over magazine cigarette ad

By Scott Malone

BOSTON (Reuters) - Six U.S. states sued the maker of Camel cigarettes on Tuesday, charging that a promotion in an issue of Rolling Stone magazine violates a 1998 agreement not to use cartoons in its marketing efforts.

The suits focus on ads for the Camel brand, produced by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., which appeared in a nine-page fold-out section in the November 15 issue of the music and popular culture magazine.

The section, titled "Indie Rock Universe," is designed to look like doodling in a student's spiral-bound notebook, with drawings of planets made to look like animals and characters. It features Camel's name and logo.

Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania filed suits. Maryland and Connecticut said in statements that the states of California and Washington also planned to file suit.

Through the late 1980s and much of the 1990s, the Joe Camel cartoon character represented the brand in print ads. Anti-smoking advocates charged that because they used cartoons, the advertisements were in effect an appeal to children.

In 1998 Reynolds, a unit of Reynolds American Inc, and other major U.S. cigarette makers agreed to drop cartoon characters from advertisements, in a settlement with 45 U.S. states plus the District of Colombia.

"We view this cartoon-based advertising campaign as a flagrant violation of the 1998 national tobacco settlement, which includes an outright ban on the use of any cartoon in tobacco advertising," said Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett, in a statement.

R.J. Reynolds said the section -- which does not use the Joe Camel character -- was produced by Rolling Stone and that it had been unaware of the section's style.

"We were surprised and concerned when the issue was published and had we been aware of the graphics prepared by Rolling Stone, we would not have advertised adjacent to the gatefold," said David Howard, spokesman for R.J. Reynolds, in a telephone interview.

The suits ask the respective state courts to stop Reynolds from running ads using cartoons, to cease distributing a promotional compact disc associated with the ads and seek monetary civil penalties.

Rolling Stone had no comment, a spokesman said. Washington State and California officials were not immediately available to comment.

(Additional reporting by Robert MacMillan in New York; editing by Stuart Grudgings)