The U.S. Surgeon General’s Report on Women and Smoking, issued March 27, 2001, documents the tobacco industry’s decades long targeting of women and girls in its advertising and promotions, with devastating consequences for women’s health. As a result:

• 178,000 women die of tobacco-caused disease each year.
• Since 1987, lung cancer has been the leading cancer killer among women.
• Heart disease is the overall leading cause of death among women, and smoking accounts for one of every five deaths from heart disease.
• Women suffer gender-specific risks from tobacco, including harm to their reproductive health and complications during pregnancy.
• From 1991 to 1999, smoking among high school girls increased by nearly 30 percent (from 27 to 34.9 percent).

The tobacco industry's targeting of women and girls dates back to the 1920s and intensified in the late 1960s with the introduction of women-specific brands, including Philip Morris' Virginia Slims and its seductive "You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby" advertising campaign. These ads cynically equated smoking with independence, sophistication and beauty and preyed on the unique social pressures that women and girls face. In the 1970s, women were targeted with advertising for so-called "low tar" and "light" brands, with implied claims of reduced risk that the tobacco companies knew to be false.

The tobacco industry's aggressive targeting of women and girls demands an equally aggressive response from public policymakers. Congress must grant the U.S. Food and Drug Administration effective authority to regulate the manufacturing, marketing and sale of tobacco products, including the authority to stop marketing and sales to girls and children in general and to restrict deceptive and dangerous health claims.

As the Surgeon General's report concludes, "the now massive body of evidence on women and smoking... compels the Nation to make reducing and preventing smoking one of the highest contemporary priorities for women’s health."