Tobacco.org

The Castro Tells the Grim Reaper to Butt Out!  

“BUTT OUT! Ending Tobacco Industry Exploitation of the LGBT Community” will mark the Gay American Smokeout by staging a public spectacle to draw attention to the impact of Big Tobacco on the LGBT community, on Nov. 19 from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. at Harvey Milk Plaza. BUTT OUT!, a local LGBT advocacy group that works against the tobacco companies, and dozens of local concerned citizens dressed in black and wearing skull makeup to represent those who have died from tobacco, will chase out of the Castro the tobacco company’s proxy, the Grim Reaper, standing close to 10-feet tall while wielding a three-foot cigarette. State Senator Mark Leno, who has pledged to refuse campaign donations from tobacco companies, will be speaking at the event.

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Great American Smokeout to be held on UCO Campus 

The University of Central Oklahoma (UCO) will host an event for the 34th Annual Great American Smokeout on November 17, 2009. The event will be in the Pegasus Theatre in the Liberal Arts building from 8:00 PM to 9:30 PM. The Great American Smokeout is a day to encourage smokers to quit as well as inform them of tools offered to help them quit.

The event on UCO's campus will include watching a section of the movie "Scene Smoking" with discussion and questions to follow. There will be booths available outside the theatre with resources and tools to help people quit smoking, as well as information on other tobacco related topics.

One of the booths at the event will focus on the tobacco industry marketing towards college-age adults. This is an ideal group for the tobacco industry to target because they are of legal age to smoke, yet they are vulnerable to being influenced because they are exploring new freedom living away from home. These young adults also have a desire to fit in to their new environment and the tobacco industry works to make it appear that the norm on campus is to be a smoker.

Tobacco companies help make smoking "cool" by sponsoring fraternity and sorority events, bar nights, concerts, as well as other events that appeal to this age group. They give out free gifts and free cigarettes, and also host popular concerts. Tobacco companies hire attractive individuals to attend these events to ask these students to let them scan their driver's license to enter them in a drawing or in exchange for a free gift. They use the information that was scanned to begin sending direct marketing to the student in the form of coupons and cigarette offers. These and other techniques for marketing will be shared at the Great American Smokeout event.

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Workplace Wellness Seems to Really Work 

Workplace wellness programs are an effective way to reduce major risk factors for heart disease, such as smoking, obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes, says a new American Heart Association policy statement.

Each year, heart disease costs the United States about $304.6 billion, the association says. Companies spend 25 to 30 percent of their annual medical costs on employees with significant health risks, mainly because of their increased likelihood of experiencing heart disease and stroke, it says.

But the financial burden also falls on workers, it says, in the form of higher premiums, co-pays and deductibles, reduction or elimination of coverage and trade-offs between insurance benefits and wage or salary increases. . . .

Keys to a successful program, according to the policy statement, include:

* Smoking/tobacco cessation and prevention

* Regular physical activity

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Affirmations launches LGBT statewide tobacco-free coalition 

Affirmations has partnered with Tobacco Free Michigan to establish a statewide coalition of LGBT and ally organizations that will focus on statewide tobacco use and secondhand smoke in the LGBT community.

Tobacco Free Michigan is a network of more than 200 organizations aimed at reducing the harmful effects of tobacco use and second hand smoke in the state of Michigan. It is funded by the Michigan Department of Community Health.

Affirmations is metro Detroit's LGBT community center, located in Ferndale. It offers programming, workshops and fun events for local LGBTs and allies.

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Alcohol, tobacco and illicit drug use amongst same-sex attracted women: results from the Western Australian Lesbian and Bisexual Women's Health and Well-Being Survey 

Conclusions

LBW appear to use alcohol, tobacco and illicit drugs at higher rates than women generally, indicating that mainstream health promotion messages are not reaching this group or are not perceived as relevant. There is an urgent need for public health practitioners working in the area of substance use to recognise that LBW drug consumption and use patterns are likely to be different to the wider population and that special considerations and strategies are required to address the unique and complex needs of this population.

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ARCHIVE: BROUGHTON: An inappropriate honour for Billie Jean King 

At this year's US Open tennis tournament, the National Tennis Center on Long Island, New York was renamed to Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. I think that this is totally inappropriate, and not just because it waters down the recognition extended to the late Arthur Ashe when the stadium on the same site was named after him. And no, I'm not sorry for being a party-pooper.

"The Philip Morris executives I know... are enlightened people who understand and acknowledge the possible hazards of smoking." Billie Jean King, December 2,1993

King was a member of the Philip Morris (renamed to Altria) board of directors from 1999 through 2003. . . .

Philip Morris/Altria's record on this sort of thing is mixed. They certainly like to sell cigarettes to women and gays. However, they have a lot of friends in Washington. (If they didn't, they would have been legislated out of business years ago.) One of these friends was Jesse Helms, a senator from North Carolina who used the Senate floor to say all sorts of unkind things about the “homosexual lifestyle”, and even introduced legislation to prohibit the use of Federal money to combat anti-gay discrimination. Philip Morris did more than contribute several million dollars to Helms' re-election campaigns (thus effectively paying for his microphone); they even gave $200,000 to a dubious charity, the Jesse Helms Citizenship Center. (See From adversary to target market, from the British Medical Journal.)

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CHAVALIER: Fire Safe Cigarettes Whats Making People Sick 

I began coughing about a week after the great cigarette switch. I thought I had lung cancer until I started talking to other smokers, and then talking to owners of cigarette stores. 100% of smokers I talked to are experiencing the same problems I am. Young or old, they all have the same chronic cough that just doesn't seem to go away.

I want to know what is in the new paper that is causing this reaction in so many people in the 21 states where fire safe cigarettes are now sold? What isn't the government telling us about these new cigarettes that we need to know? . . .

Smokers were always told not to re-light a cigarette once it's gone out completely because the chemicals are much harsher than they were when you first lit your cigarette. Now, the government is telling us that if you're cigarette goes out it's okay to light it back up and keep smoking? Something is rotten, and I intend to find out what it is.

Now, before you get into your email and start writing me letters saying this has nothing to do with the LGBT Community, I just want to tell you, that many people in the LGBT Community are smokers and I'm sure they have the same questions I am having about fire safe cigarettes. . . .

Also, if you are one of the many people experiencing illness after smoking the new fire safe cigarettes please share your story with our readers by emailing the address above.

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Gays and lesbians more likely to smoke (by quite a bit), study shows  

Among homosexuals: 37% of women smoke; 33% of men smoke.

Among heterosexuals: 18% of women smoke; 24% of men smoke

These figures come from researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Published in the August issue of Tobacco Control, they're based on a review of 42 studies about tobacco use among sexual minorities. (The heterosexual numbers are from the National Health Interview Survey.)

It's not that the finding that gays and lesbians are more likely to smoke is new. According to the summary of an earlier report from the CDC, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine in 2001:

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The smoking ban — one month later 

At the Round-Up Saloon, business is up 10-20 percent in the month since Dallas’ new smoking ban took effect on April 10, including a 40 percent spike during the first weekend, according to co-owner Alan Pierce.

But at Illusions on Maple Avenue — despite the recent addition of a patio out front —business is down a whopping 40 percent overall as a result of the smoking ban, said owner Eddie Bonner.

Meanwhile, at the four clubs owned by Caven Enterprises along the Cedar Springs strip, there’s been no significant increase or decrease in business that can be attributed directly to the smoking ban, according to Caven spokesman Rick Espaillat.

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Bar patron cited for smoking, damaging squad car  

A woman arrested for smoking in a Lake View neighborhood tavern was also charged with damaging property after she allegedly kicked a squad car early Thursday on the North Side, police said.

Jill Hillbrich, 42, of the 3800 block of North Broadway, was cited with damage to property, resisting a police officer and smoking in a public place, all misdemeanors, according to a police report.

Hillbrich was arrested at 1:10 a.m. at The Closet, a gay and lesbian bar on the 3300 block of North Broadway, after a security guard told police she was smoking in the bar, the report said.

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LETTER: Smoke bothers others  

Jeffrey A. Brown's recent commentary (York Sunday News, April 5) comparing prejudices against gays and smokers overlooks one very important point. Unlike many controversial lifestyles or behaviors, smoking directly harms nearby "unwilling participants" (secondhand smoke). Smokers wouldn't encounter such strong opposition if their smoke was self-contained.

Mr. Brown's comment "like it's any of their business" regarding his right to smoke amplifies the fact that some smokers are ignorant regarding the degree their habit adversely affects others. . . .

The simple fact is your smoking does become my business from the moment your smoke invades my space. That, Mr. Brown, is why we want to take away your "right."

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Bars hope smoking ban brings back customers 

Brown said. “I really attribute that to getting used to the nonsmoking environment in L.A. when I was there. It was sort of a rude awakening when I came back, so I think if that’s lifted, it could open up a lot more opportunities for me to go out.”

Representatives from gay and lesbian bars in Dallas say they’re hoping for a boost in business from others like Brown in the wake of the smoking ban.

“I think we’re going to create a whole new clientele of people who haven’t been out to the bars for a long time,” said Michael Doughman, executive director of the Dallas Tavern Guild, an association of about 20 gay and lesbian bars citywide.

“I certainly hope that that’s true,” said Rick Espaillat, a spokesman for Caven Enterprises, which operates four gay and lesbian clubs along the Cedar Springs strip. . . .

Dallas bars and clubs may need an influx of new customers to offset an inevitable slight decline in business from hard-core smokers — like 55-year-old Randy Walker.

Walker, a smoker of 44 years, said he spends $20 five times a week during happy hour at Crews Inn, a gay bar on Fitzhugh Avenue. But Walker said with the smoking ban, he’ll go out only once or twice a week.

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Focus on smoking lesbians 

THE high incidence of smoking among lesbians is the key issue being tackled by Curtin University’s Jude Comfort in her PhD study, which she hopes will extend the focus on gay health in general.

Ms Comfort is looking for women to take part in interviews for the study to uncover why smoking rates are much higher among lesbians, at a rate of 28 per cent compared to 15 per cent across the whole female population.

“It’s a rather large project – I’m interviewing for three months and I don’t expect the study to be done for 18 months,” she said.

“Ideally, I want to interview about 40 women and I’m half way through at the moment.”

Ms Comfort said that so far stress was emerging as a cause of the trend.

“I think there’s a lot of homophobia out there and it still causes stress on lesbian women when they have to come out to family and friends,” she said.

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• Smoking prevention groups go after tobacco ads targeting gays  

The cigarette pitch demands a second look.

Two ripped, rakish men and one lean, pristine hound pause, inexplicably, in the cool shallows of a calm green sea.

"How gay is this ad?" R.E. Szego, a Portland tobacco-prevention specialist, asks when she sees such an image.

It's a sincere question, not a slam.

Wooed for years by tobacco companies -- who lavish free merchandise on their bars and clubs, sponsor their events and advertise heavily in their publications -- gays, lesbians and bisexuals remain hooked on cigarettes, even as the general population smokes less.

But public health specialists are optimistic that a new ban on smoking in Oregon bars will cause a decline in the smoking rates of gays and lesbians, who tend to pick up the habit as teens coming to terms with stigma surrounding their sexual identity.

"If you were coming up gay, it used to be the only place you got to meet was in a bar," says Michael Kaplan, executive director of Cascade AIDS Project and a former pack-a-day smoker. "If you wanted to fit in, you'd smoke."

About one in three gay, lesbian and bisexual Oregonians smoke . . .

Tobacco foes call the cigarette companies' marketing techniques "gay vague." It's a love-that-dare-not-speak-its-name style of advertising heavy on images of hearty women fishing in the woods and beefy bartenders leveling come-hither gazes at ... no one in particular.

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It’s lights out for smokers in Virginia 

State lawmakers and Gov. Tim Kaine (D) are poised to approve a smoking ban after such legislation has languished in the General Assembly for years. The ban would mean the state would join D.C. and Maryland in the general prohibition of smoking in restaurants and bars, where bans were enacted in recent years.

But the possible prohibition on lighting up in Virginia restaurants has angered some gay smokers at Freddie’s Beach Bar, a gay establishment in Arlington.

Alexandra Beninda, a smoker and transgender resident of Arlington, said “it would be too bad” for places like Freddie’s because she thinks Virginia restaurants draw business from smokers who live in D.C.

“Sometimes they’ve been able to get a few people to cross the river … to come here because they can smoke,” she said.

Beninda, 53, said she didn’t think she’d come to Freddie’s less frequently if the smoking ban were enacted, though, because it’s her “neighborhood bar.”

Brewster Knott, a smoker and a gay resident of Alexandria, said he often patronizes Freddie’s and being able to smoke in Virginia made patronizing restaurants in the state preferable to going to D.C.

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