Tobacco companies have been giving free chewing tobacco to the University’s fraternities, a practice that is drawing both criticism from health officials and justification from students who say they’re old enough to choose for themselves whether to use tobacco products.
Stephanie Young-Peterson, the tobacco prevention coordinator for the Lane County Public Health Department, said tobacco companies are employing this practice in an effort to get students hooked.
Young-Peterson said the marketing strategy is “appalling” and “unethical” on the part of both the fraternities and the tobacco companies.
“It’s like, ‘Hey, here’s free cancer!’” Young-Peterson said.
Members of Kappa Sigma, Beta Theta Pi, Chi Psi and Sigma Nu all reported that they had received free tobacco products. According to Kappa Sigma President Drew Wedeking, obtaining the products was easy and only required filling out a survey.
“If you want chew, you can get it,” he said.
Young-Peterson said the marketing strategies the companies employ are very effective.
“Tobacco is so addictive that it’s doesn’t take long to develop a full-fledged addiction,” she said.
But Sigmu Nu President Andrew Newsom countered the practice of giving away free tobacco products isn’t likely to get people addicted.
“I’d say that just in my personal experience an isolated incident like that is not likely to cause people to change their habits,” he said.
Newsom added that fraternity members are mature and can choose for themselves whether to accept the products.
“I don’t think it’s unethical to target full-grown adults,” he added.
Paula Staight, the director of health education at the Health Center, said she fears fraternity members may not comprehend the potency of tobacco addiction.
“It’s hard to understand tobacco addiction if you haven’t experienced it,” she said.
She added giving away free tobacco products eliminates the “price barrier,” referring to the concept that the more expensive tobacco products get, the less likely people are to buy and use them — especially cash-strapped college students.
But Wedeking said the strategy is purely competitive.
“A lot of what they’re trying to do is trying to get people to switch brands,” he said.
Though fraternities reported they haven’t been contacted recently by tobacco companies, many presidents said they would accept the products if companies offered them.
Chi Psi President Casey Doolin said he personally doesn’t use tobacco products but would accept the products “on behalf of the guys that do.”
But Beta Theta Pi President Dan Occhipinti said he would refuse to accept the products out of concern for the health of his fraternity’s members.
Giving away free chewing tobacco is not the only marketing tactic that has come under question. A study by University of Southern California documented 40 fraternity events that had been sponsored by the United States Smokeless Tobacco Company. Young-Peterson also reported that tobacco vendors had been showing up at vacation hot spots frequented by fraternities, such as Lake Shasta, to give out free merchandise.
USST showed up at Sigma Nu in fall 2002, according to Newsom, but he said he would never allow them to sponsor an event.
“If the entire house is allowing them to sponsor a house function, it would mean that the entire membership is condoning tobacco use, which really isn’t the case,” he said.
Staight hopes to implement a policy to ban the practice of accepting free tobacco products on campus, saying that fraternities are supposed to be “substance-free.”
“What we’d like to have them do is include tobacco among those substances,” she said.
Staight and the Campus Advisory Board recently pushed to have tobacco sales banned at Erb Essentials.
“It would be in the best interest of the greek system to … put into place a policy that they would not accept tobacco products,” Young-Peterson said.
But Newsom still argues that the practice is perfectly fine, given that fraternity members are mature adults.
“In regard to ethics, people need to be responsible for their own decisions and they can’t blame the tobacco industry for wanting to … advertise their products,” he said.