Pubdate: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 Source: Guardian, The (UK) Website: http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/guardian/ Address: 75 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3ER, England Email: 2001 Guardian Newspapers Limited Forum: http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/BBS/News/0,2161,Latest|Topics|3,00.html Fax: +44-171-837 4530 Author: Sarah Hall Note: Article is Part 4b in Guardian Newspapers Limited ongoing special report series entitled "Drugs In Britain" YOUNG AMIS CAUGHT IN ILLEGAL ACT An advertising campaign for Martin Amis's acclaimed autobiography Experience has been banned by London Underground because it features a photograph of the author as a young boy smoking. The company has insisted the photo, which appears on the book's cover, be removed because it features the novelist doing something illegal and could encourage underage smoking. Pleas from Amis's publishers to airbrush the cigarette or place a sticker over it were rejected. A replacement poster will sport just a black background. The ban comes a day after it emerged that London Underground had banned an advert for Miss Selfridge showing five women giving the V-sign for being "rude, offensive and extreme", while a second poster showing scantily clad models was axed for fear customers would find it "difficult to avert their eyes". A spokeswoman insisted there was no desire to act as the capital's moral arbiters. "We rejected the poster about Martin Amis's new book because it showed a young boy of about seven years old smoking a cigarette. Under our guidelines advertising must comply with the law, and as it is illegal for children under the age of 16 to smoke, this advertising was rejected. We also feel it could be said it incited children to break the law." Amis's publishers, Vintage, who will still use the picture in a national press campaign next month, said they were "bemused" by the decision. "We put up over a thousand posters in bookshops up and down the country when it was published in hardback last May, and the image was reproduced widely, but we had no complaints," said a spokeswoman. "It's an adorable picture which refers to something in the book, and it's so Martin. Anyone interested in buying it would know it was him." In the past, London Underground has banned a condom advert for SafeGuard Forte featuring two men, naked from the waist up, embracing. Earlier this month it banned a poster for Spitfire Ale, featuring the line "German beer is pants", on the grounds it was racist.