The truth® campaign is the largest national youth-focused anti-tobacco education campaign ever. It is designed to engage teens by exposing Big Tobacco's marketing and manufacturing practices, as well as highlighting the toll of tobacco in relevant and innovative ways.
Does truth® work? You bet it does.
- Seventy-five percent of all 12 to 17 year-olds in the nation - 21 million - can accurately describe one or more of the truth® ads.
- Nearly 90 percent of youths aged 12 to 17 - 25 million - said the ad they saw was convincing.
- Eighty-five percent - 24 million - said the ad gave them good reasons not to smoke.
Monitoring the Future, one of the nation's most comprehensive substance abuse surveys, reported dramatic declines in smoking rates among 8th, 10th, and 12th graders, citing truth® as a factor in this public health success story. From 2000 to 2002, cigarette smoking among high school students fell by more than one million, thanks in large part to truth®.
But the truth® campaign's future is in jeopardy. In 2003, funding for truth® under the Master Settlement Agreement between the states and Big Tobacco stopped.
