Smoking, Teenage Girls, and the FDA

   Let's talk about one of the FDA's newer anti-smoking ads targeted at teenage girls. This is the one I mean.
   If you don't feel like watching it, let me give you a quick rundown- a girl sits at a cafeteria table and talks about someone, referred to using male pronouns, who manipulates her life and controls how she spends her time. Obviously, she's talking about cigarettes. She's seen smoking outside at the end of the commercial.
   My problem with this ad is that it plays off of a very real problem to create an advertising shtick. Violence and abuse within teenage relationships is a serious issue that has not been addressed enough; the CDC states that, according to a nationwide survey in 2011, nearly 10% of teens experienced violence at the hand of their girlfriend/boyfriend. Furthermore, 20% of women who experience rape or physical violence from an intimate partner report first experienced partner violence as teenagers. This ad implies that smoking is just as bad as partner violence, when only 4% of tenth-graders and 9% of twelfth-graders smoke regularly.  
   This echoes a trend I've seen in several media campaigns, most notably from PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). Clearly attempting a "shock and awe" tactic, they have placed women in cages and even in plastic packaging. These strategies make light of the serious objectification and human trafficking issues that plague women in the US and abroad.
  There are better ways to draw attention to the harmful effects of smoking. If this is an ad campaign targeting teenagers, playing off partner violence that ten percent of the target faces only serves to alienate those people.
   Rates of teen smoking have gone down dramatically in the last few decades, so the FDA is doing something right. Why, then, should we devalue the importance of healthy relationships (key to developing emotional and mental health) to tell kids that smoking is bad? The last several decades of school health programs and initiatives have told teens that smoking is bad, while some of the most popular media aimed at girls and women tells them abuse is okay. Shouldn't we do something about that?