Billboard Company To Drop Tobacco Ads

One of the largest billboard companies announced Thursday that it will stop advertising tobacco, slightly narrowing the options for cigarette makers who push their brands along the nation’s highways.

3M Media became the first billboard company to refuse tobacco ads, partly to appease shareholders of the parent company who objected to a firm known for making medical supplies also advertising a product blamed for killing 400,000 Americans a year.

“This was prompted by the morally driven shareholders, who want to combine the fiscal bottom line with their moral bottom line,” said the Rev. Michael Crosby of New York’s Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, a coalition of religious institution investors who hold a $50 billion portfolio.

But the tobacco industry said there are still enough billboards to go around, charging that 3M had buckled to undue influence.

“They’ve allowed activists to have them set a precedent,” said Tobacco Institute spokeswoman Brennan Dawson.