States sue Reynolds over magazine cigarette ad

BOSTON (Reuters) - Eight 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 foldout 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.

California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania filed lawsuits. Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna filed a motion to ban RJR from using cartoons in its ads and is seeking more than $3.5 million in sanctions and fines.

California Attorney General Jerry Brown told Reuters that RJR had "a duty to learn how their money is being spent" even if they did not design the ad.

"The legal standard is they have to take precautions. They know they are not supposed to use cartoons" in ads under the terms of the 1998 multi-state tobacco settlement, Brown said.

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 and 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," Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett said 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 lawsuits 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.

A Rolling Stone spokesman said the magazine had no comment.

(Additional reporting by Robert MacMillan in New York and Gina Keating in Los Angeles; editing by Stuart Grudgings)