[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book I)]
[May 7, 1996]
[Pages 697-700]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



[[Page 697]]


Remarks on Kick Butts Day in Woodbridge
May 7, 1996

    Thank you very much. Senator Lautenberg, thank you for your presence 
here and your tireless efforts to help protect young people from the 
dangers of smoking. Mayor McGreevey, thank you for your warm welcome and 
your strong leadership and the powerful statement that you made today. I 
hope all of the citizens who elected you were listening. And Jennifer 
Crea, thank you. Didn't she do a terrific job? Let's give her a hand. 
[Applause] I want to thank Bill Hait from the New Jersey Cancer 
Institute and Dave Brown and Harry Carson from the New York Giants for 
appearing here before me. I thank your superintendent, Lee Seitz, and 
your principal, Dave Peterson, for making me feel welcome here today.
    I thank the band for being here today. And I want to thank Professor 
John Slade and your peer leader, Pam Chesky, and the students who met 
with me earlier to talk about their efforts to stem the tide of teen 
smoking. I want to thank all of you who came up with these signs; 
they're great. I love this--they're great signs.
    In his absence, I also want to recognize one person who is not here, 
the public advocate for New York City, Mark Green, who came up with the 
idea for this National Kick Butts Day and organized it in cooperation 
with the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. He's been working on this now 
for about 6 years, and I really appreciate his commitment.
    I want to talk to the young people here a little in the beginning 
about how this issue of young people smoking--or hopefully, young people 
not smoking--fits into my vision for your lives. There is a reason that 
I became the first President ever to take on this issue, and it's not a 
negative reason. It is true that previous Presidents have not done it, 
and it may be that the power of the lobbies on the other side had 
something to do with that. But I felt that we had no choice.
    The Vice President lost a sister to lung cancer at a very early age 
whom he loved very much. My mother, who died of cancer at the age of 70, 
smoked two packs a day for most of her life till my 8-year-old daughter 
talked her out of it, much in the same way Senator Lautenberg's daughter 
talked him out of it. But beyond that, I want you to understand that we 
are doing what we're doing because I feel we have no choice, and let me 
explain why.
    I want all the young people here to grow up in an America that is 
stronger and more full of opportunity for you than any time in our 
history before. And I believe that in order for that to happen it is my 
responsibility, number one, to try to help provide opportunities for all 
those who are willing to work for them; number two, to try to help bring 
the American people together so that all this diversity--I look out here 
in this student body and I see the face of America--we have more racial 
and ethnic groups represented in our great, throbbing, thriving 
democracy than any democracy in human history. And if we can prove that 
we can all work together and help each other and respect each other, 
that will be an enormous asset in the global society of the 21st 
century. I want our country to be strong and to lead the world for peace 
and sreedom.
    And in order for all that to happen, we've got to have strong 
people. We have to give you the tools to make the most of your own 
lives. The first and most important of those is a good education. But 
you also need a clean environment and safe streets and communities that 
work and the opportunity to be supported in a strong family. All these 
things require a partnership between people in public life and private 
citizens.
    But none of this will amount to anything, not the economic 
opportunities, not the opportunity for America to come together and 
bridge our differences and be a stronger community, not the strength of 
your country, not even the quality of the educational system or the fact 
that we got the crime rate going down and we're continuing to fight for 
a clean environment, unless you--unless you--make the decision to make 
the most of your own life.
    And it starts with the decision to respect who you are, to respect 
the resources that God gave you, and to make the most of them. That's 
what this anti-teen smoking campaign is all about. We now know what the 
health dangers are. We now know that, advertising notwithstanding, it

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is not a glamorous thing to risk your health and your life.
    The students that I just met with from Woodbridge showed me an 
incredible collection of tobacco ads and trinkets, T-shirts, hats and 
other giveaways, and tobacco products, all of which were found right 
here in your community, and all of which your fellow students thought 
were enticing young people to smoke. Now, you've got a group of students 
here, and we recently--just before I came out, I talked with students in 
11 cities throughout the country, all of whom are committed to turning 
this around. And I know that in many ways the influence of young people 
on their peers is far greater than the influence of older people, even 
the President--maybe especially the President. [Laughter]
    So this is very hopeful. But our administration has issued a 
challenge to people all across America and especially to our young 
people to create a groundswell of involvement to protect our children 
from the dangers of tobacco.
    Those of you who are volunteering in this effort are collecting 
information about advertising and availability of cigarettes, which can 
help to save lives. It can certainly help to influence business owners 
to be more vigilant in checking the age of tobacco customers. You may 
even do something like young people did in Santa Ana, California, when 
they got billboard companies to remove cigarette billboards located 
close to schools. You can help encourage people to stay away from 
tobacco, and you can take on the message of the advertising.
    Now, all of these things are profoundly important. You've heard all 
the statistics, but let me just tell you the one that grips me the most: 
3,000 people under the age of 18 start smoking every day, and 1,000 of 
those 3,000 will die sooner because of it. Oh, maybe they'll die at 60 
instead of 65. That may seem a long way away to you when you're 18; it 
seems right around the corner to me. [Laughter] And those 5 years get a 
lot more important to you as you go along. Not only that, you want to be 
healthy while you're living them if you can.
    Now, we can't control our genetic makeup; we can't control what may 
happen to us in an unfortunate accident. Some of us will, it's terrible 
to say, may even become victims of crime. That is no reason for giving 
up. We should control those things which we can control about our lives. 
Our obligation is to live as long and as well as we can, to do as much 
as we can with whatever lot we get in life. We should not be self-
destructive; we should do no harm.
    That's what this whole thing is about: 3,000 kids start smoking 
every day; 1,000 will die sooner because of it. All the other facts are 
not nearly as compelling as that. Do you want to take a one in three 
chance that you're going to shorten your life?
    Let me tell you something. This is hard for you to believe, but I 
can actually remember when I was in high school. [Laughter] I have never 
missed one of my high school reunions, never, not a one. Every 5 years I 
show up, every 5 years. I have followed the lives of my classmates, and 
I am telling you, there are consequences to all the decisions we make.
    Your country needs you. We need you to be well-educated. We need you 
to be able to raise strong families. We need you to be able to raise 
good kids yourselves. We need you to be able to make contributions to 
communities like this one. We need you to prove all the cynics wrong 
when they say we can't adjust to this new society in which we're living, 
and no country can be a democracy with as much diversity as we have. We 
need you for all those reasons.
    But you deserve the life you are going to be given. Do not throw it 
away. One in three chance that you will end your life sooner--that is a 
lousy bargain for no benefit. Don't do it.
    I'll tell you something else we know, and it's already been said 
today, but I want to say it again. About 90 percent of all new smokers 
are young people under the age of 18. Almost a hundred percent of people 
who are actually addicted to smoking start when they're under 18. You 
know, occasionally somebody will try it when they're 21 or 22 or 25. 
Almost never does anybody become a regular, addicted smoker if they 
don't start when they're young.
    That's an important thing to know. I want to say to all of you, I 
know you can't do this alone. I'm gratified at the willingness of the 
adults I met today to support you. I'm encouraged by the statements of 
the political leaders here today in support of this endeavor. I know 
that there are things that we have to do as well, but I also want to 
encourage more people in this community to help. Our religious 
institutions, our churches, our synagogues in America, increasingly our 
temples and our mosques--people imparting values to young people to 
stand up and make the most of their own lives and

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to say no. And again I say, we need you young people to influence one 
another.
    We have, as you know, proposed ways to crack down on advertising--
Senator Lautenberg referred to it--that make--advertising that makes 
young people think smoking is cool. Last August I announced the Food and 
Drug Administration's proposed regulations to make it harder for minors 
to buy cigarettes by reducing their access to vending machines and free 
samples and by limiting ads that appeal to young people.
    In January we issued the Synar regulation, named for the late former 
Congressman from Oklahoma, Mike Synar, to demand that in return for the 
Federal money they get, States must do more to enforce their own laws. 
The amazing thing is that it is illegal for children to smoke in every 
State in America right now, but the laws are not being enforced. Now we 
say if you want the Federal money, enforce your own laws and do the 
right thing.
    In March of this year we had a meeting at the White House with over 
a hundred leaders in the areas of health, religion, sports, business, 
education, and other services to children to highlight what they are now 
doing to help prevent young people from starting to smoke and to pledge 
an even more intense, unified effort. We know businesses have a special 
role, and I want to talk about this a moment. Businesses, of course, 
have the legal right to sell cigarettes to adults, but they also have a 
legal and moral responsibility to prevent the sale to minors.
    I met with a number of your students, as I said before. Three of 
them told me they went out to see if they could buy cigarettes. Two were 
16. One tried 10 times; the other tried 5. They were 15 for 15 in buying 
cigarettes and not even being carded--15 for 15. One was 13, and smiled 
in a way that said ``I know I look 13, not 18.'' He was 3 for 8. And 
none of those 3 people that sold him those cigarettes thought he was 18 
years of age, not a single one. So there's a responsibility on the part 
of business to do better.
    I was proud to announce at the White House in March that the 
chairman of the A&P supermarket chain will recommend to his board this 
summer that the whole chain discontinue the use of cigarette vending 
machines by the end of the year. And you may have heard that just last 
week, the 3M Company and the Interfaith Center for Corporate 
Responsibility reached an agreement that 3M would no longer accept 
tobacco advertising for its billboards, and good for them. This is the 
first major national media company to take this step. I want to commend 
Livio DeSimone, the chairman and CEO of 3M, and Reverend Michael Crosby 
of the Interfaith Center for this remarkable accomplishment.
    And finally, I'd like to say something to the tobacco companies. Of 
course, the students have to do their part, and ultimately, the decision 
is theirs. Of course, the rest of us have to do our part. But you in the 
tobacco business now surely see the clear emerging consensus in America 
that advertising, billboards, and promotions should not appeal to the 
children of this country.
    And so I urge you, be responsible. Do not stay outside of and apart 
from this debate. Do not engage in practices the American people have 
rejected. Agree to the commonsense restrictions proposed by the FDA last 
year on advertising that affects children. Join with us. Do the right 
thing. Don't do the wrong thing. Do the right thing. Do it now and help 
us. Play your role in stopping this problem before it starts for 
millions and millions and millions of young Americans.
    I say again to you in closing, the young people here in this 
auditorium and throughout this country, those of us who are my age and 
older, we've lived most of our lives. Whatever happens to us, we 
probably have more yesterdays than tomorrows. This is about you. It's 
about your future. It's about the kind of America you will live in. It's 
the kind of America you will leave for your children. We are moving into 
this era of absolutely unimaginable possibilities, in which, if my 
generation does its job right, we will leave to you more security from 
being destroyed from without, more harmony of people working together in 
this country, and more opportunity than any generation of Americans has 
ever known.
    But you have to take advantage of the opportunity. And that means 
you need a good education. It means you're entitled to good schools and 
safe streets and a clean environment. But first, it means you have to 
decide to do no harm to yourself. Begin with that.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 2 p.m. in the gymnasium at Woodbridge High 
School. In his remarks, he referred to Mayor James E. McGreevey of 
Woodbridge; student Jennifer Crea, who intro-


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duced the President; William Hait, director, Cancer Institute of New 
Jersey; New York Giants football player Dave Brown and former New York 
Giants football player Harry Carson; and John Slade, professor, Rutgers 
University Medical School.