Truth (anti-tobacco campaign)

Truth
Product typeYouth smoking prevention public education campaign
OwnerTruth Initiative
IntroducedApril 1998; 26 years ago (1998-04)
MarketsUnited States
Websitethetruth.com

Truth (stylized as truth) is an American public-relations campaign aimed at reducing teen smoking in the United States. It is conducted by the Truth Initiative (formerly called the American Legacy Foundation until 2015) and funded primarily by money obtained from the tobacco industry under the terms of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement reached between 46 U.S. states and the four largest companies in the tobacco industry.

The Truth campaign includes television and digital content to encourage teens to reject tobacco and to unite against the tobacco industry. When the campaign was launched in 1998, the teen smoking rate was 23%. By 2023, the use of combustible tobacco products was down to 11.2%, but overall tobacco use was at 22.2% due to the rise of e-cigarette use among teens.[1] In August 2014, a variation called "Finish It" was launched to assert that the current youth cohort should be the generation that ends smoking.[2]

  1. ^ Birdsey, Jan (2023). "Tobacco Product Use Among U.S. Middle and High School Students — National Youth Tobacco Survey, 2023". MMWR. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 72 (44): 1173–1182. doi:10.15585/mmwr.mm7244a1. ISSN 0149-2195. PMC 10629751. PMID 37917558.
  2. ^ Newman, Andrew Adam (August 10, 2014). "A Less Defiant Tack in a Campaign to Curb Smoking by Teenagers". The New York Times. Retrieved December 10, 2014.