Tobacco.org

• Anti-Smoking Campaigns Work, So Don't Quit Now 

Get ready for a barrage of ads that will come at you with a singularly mind-blowing message: Smoking is bad for you. Not just bad for you. Really bad for you.

It's a fact that should be obvious to any sentient being, yet within the next year or so, not one but two federal agencies, the Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration, will be newly pounding the nation's airwaves with anti-smoking ads -- as if it were a sure thing that you needed them. To be a smoker in 2012 is not only to ignore the biological reality that the habit will knock years off your life but also shrug off the cultural stigmas -- the dwindling number of smoke-friendly public places, the dirty looks -- and the fact that heavily-taxed smokes are priced at a point only a one-percenter could easily afford. . . .

If we've seen a "denormalization of smoking," as the CDC describes it, do we need to drop hundreds of millions of dollars on a familiar message during cash-strapped times? If all those appeals to the brain, wallet and pride don't work, how will a bunch of ads?

As it turns out, anti-smoking ads actually do work. There's plenty of academic research proving it. And there's circumstantial, but no less compelling, evidence that in the absence of advertisements, smoking rates don't go down as quickly as they would without the nagging. And that entails its own costs. . . .

But there's no doubt that the leveling off of the smoking rate has occurred at a time when many states, amid deep cuts to tobacco-prevention budgets, are spending next to nothing on ads and have been getting little air cover from the national level. This is bad news when you consider how effective those ads have been.

Research scientists have been studying the impact of anti-smoking ad campaigns for decades, even before the "Truth" campaign launched in 2000, when the job was mainly the province of individual states.

Many have found what Sherry Emery, a health economist who has studied the impact of media campaigns at the state level, has. Ms. Emery said that analyses of youth and adult reaction "showed that higher levels of exposure to the state media campaigns were associated with less smoking and more anti-smoking attitudes and beliefs."

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The "Truth" Campaign Creators' MenthLab Combines Design And Community To Steer Youth From Menthol Cigarettes  

Can mint-green baseball caps, dodgeballs stenciled with the number "1200," and a whist tournament dissuade kids from smoking? According to a renegade team of designers and community leaders, the answer is yes.

Before you dismiss this wild effort, consider the pedigree of the team: It's the latest effort of Legacy, the antitobacco education foundation whose "Truth" ad campaign is credited with keeping 450,000 teens from starting to smoke between 2000 and 2002. This past October, Legacy convened 45 designers, health experts, entrepreneurs, entertainers, and community activists in Detroit for a summit designed to address the scourge of menthol cigarettes in urban communities. The five-day workshop, dubbed MenthLab and held at the College for Creative Studies, was meant to generate grassroots ideas for products that would appeal to teens and steer them clear of menthol cigs--the cancer stick of choice for many African-American adolescents.

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truth® Wraps Up 12th Annual Summer Tour  

truth, the nation's largest smoking prevention campaign for youth, concluded its 12th annual nationwide summer tour on Saturday, September 3, with its final stop in New York City. For the summer of 2011, the tour logged more than 28,000 miles, visiting more than 50 cities. More than 450,000 young people were exposed to the truth tour as it made its way across the country, traveling with popular music and sporting events.

The 2011 tour marked the twelfth consecutive year truth has been on the road talking with teens about tobacco at venues and events that appeal to teenagers. Throughout the summer, truth traveled with the Vans Warped Tour® and the Quiksilver Presents Birdhouse Skateboards MIAtoNYC Tour powered by Tech Deck, a skate event featuring legendary skateboarder Tony Hawk and other popular skateboarders. Seven young adult truth "tour riders" and a DJ crisscrossed the country, making more than 50 stops across 29 states. The tour also made some first-ever stops - in Council Bluffs, Iowa; Fayetteville, North Carolina; and Savannah, Georgia (Bluffton, SC).

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Truth's Anti-Smoking Campaign Joins Warped Tour at Pomona FairplexThe group reaches out to youths with its anti-smoking campaign through games, giveaways. 

The Truth campaign, currently on tour with the Van's Warped Tour, made a stop at the Pomona Fairplex on Friday.

The Truth Truck is a mobile party, featuring a DJ and sound system, a dance floor, and an area for people to relax and get a break from the heat.

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COMING TO A CITY NEAR YOU: MUSIC, FASHION, A BIG ORANGE TRUCK...AND LIFE-SAVING MESSAGES 

truth, the nation's largest smoking prevention campaign for youth, will begin its 12th annual nationwide summer tour on Friday, June 24, with a stop in Dallas, Texas. Traveling throughout the United States this summer, truth continues its life-saving mission to educate young people about the health effects, addictiveness and social consequences of tobacco use. Young adult truth "tour riders" will interact with teens across the country at local stops of popular summer music tours and sporting events.

Every year, the truth riders connect with more than 500,000 teens, allowing teens to experience the truth campaign first-hand. This year, tour riders and their signature orange "truth truck" will make more than 50 stops across 29 states, as they travel to some of the season's hottest teen-oriented events. The tour will also make some first-ever stops - in Council Bluffs, Iowa; Fayetteville, North Carolina; and Savannah, Georgia.

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Coming to a City Near You: Music, Fashion, a Big Orange Truck...and Life-Saving Messages  

truth, the nation's largest smoking prevention campaign for youth, will begin its 12th annual nationwide summer tour on Friday, June 24, with a stop in Dallas, Texas. Traveling throughout the United States this summer, truth continues its life-saving mission to educate young people about the health effects, addictiveness and social consequences of tobacco use. Young adult truth "tour riders" will interact with teens across the country at local stops of popular summer music tours and sporting events.

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• Smoke and minors  

Forget BlackBerrys or wedges: the most desirable accessory for huge numbers of adolescent girls today is a cigarette. The trend began in the 1990s, when girls started to overtake boys as smokers; the gap grew to 10 percentage points in 2004 with 26% of 15-year-old girls smoking compared with 16% of boys. The gap has narrowed since but in 2009 girls are still more likely to smoke than boys.

There has long been a synergy between the changing self-image of girls and the wiles of the tobacco industry. Smoking was described by one team of researchers as a way in which some adolescent girls express their resistance to the "good girl" feminine identity. In 2011, when Kate Moss creates controversy by puffing away on the Louis Vuitton catwalk and Lady Gaga breaks the law by lighting up on stage, cigarettes have clearly lost none of their transgressive appeal.

What's different today is the "dark marketing" techniques used by the tobacco industry since the demise of "above-the-line" advertising in 2002. These appeal to girls' fears and fantasies, through subliminal online and real-world sponsorship.

Tobacco manufacturers, for instance, have been accused of flooding YouTube with videos of sexy smoking teenage girls, while in a pioneering partnership with British American Tobacco, London's Ministry of Sound nightclub agreed in 1995 to promote Lucky Strike cigarettes. . . .

According to Amanda Amos, professor of health promotion at the University of Edinburgh, there's also a social class dimension: more disadvantaged teenage girls smoke, and they're less likely to give up. Then why aren't boys equally affected? This is where it gets particularly dispiriting. "Top boys" have alternative ways of displaying prestige, such as sport: smoking to look cool conflicts with their desire to get fit. Girls want to be thin more than fit: smoking, they believe, helps keep their weight down. One in four said that smoking made them feel less hungry and that they smoked "instead of eating". . . .

we haven't seen the full health consequences of this bulge of girls' smoking yet. Last week Amos addressed the European parliament as part of Europe Against Cancer Week. Female MEPS were shocked when she passed round packets of super-skinnies clearly targeted at girls, and discussed how women need to be empowered not to smoke. Girls need alternatives that make them feel as powerful, independent and attractive as they think cigarettes do. Smoking really is a feminist issue.

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Truth-telling students rewarded with cash for anti-smoking campaigns  

Angeleah Craner and Ethan Lindsey don’t go to the same school or church or even grocery store, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have a shared message: smoking can wreck your life. Both Weber County students recently won a statewide contest to create an anti-tobacco ad sponsored by the Utah Department of Health and the TRUTH campaign, an anti-tobacco organization.

More than 7,200 students from Utah submitted ads they created, ranging from radio spots to television commercials and billboards. Each student had a chance that his or her submission could become a real ad.

Designs by Angeleah and Ethan placed second and third among the billboard submissions. Elizabeth Peck, a student from South Summit Elementary School in Francis, Summit County, placed first.

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Other Announcements 

KRISTOF: The Power of Mockery  

Tina Rosenberg, a longtime writer and journalist who contributes to the Opinion section of nytimes.com, offers a brilliant look at bottom-up initiatives to achieve social change in her new book, "Join the Club." My favorite example has to do with teenage smoking.

From the 1970s through the 1990s, nothing seemed to work to dissuade teenagers from smoking. Television commercials warned that smoking kills you or turns your teeth yellow, but teenagers felt invulnerable. And with adults united in disapproval of teenage smoking, what better way for adolescents to rebel than to cough their way through a cigarette?

Then in the late-1990s, some frustrated anti-smoking campaigners showed teenagers how cigarette companies were manipulating them into addiction. Starting in Florida, the teenagers then designed a series of funny and withering commercials, many based on prank phone calls. . . .

"It is likely that never before in the history of public health had anyone done a media campaign based on prank phone calls," Rosenberg notes -- but it worked.

The youth campaign spread to other states and avoided any goody-two-shoes message of "don't smoke." It channeled kids to rebel against tobacco instead of rebelling by using tobacco. Florida had the biggest one-year drop in high school and middle school smoking of any state in two decades. The high school smoking rate dropped in half in less than a decade. . . .

Sometimes the most powerful force for social change is a bunch of irreverent and wise-cracking students, working together.

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Cancer survivor speaks out against tobacco use to Utah teens 

A cancer survivor who had her voice box removed is set to speak to Utah teens this week to urge them to never smoke.

The Michigan-born Terrie Hall was diagnosed with throat cancer after smoking for more than 20 years -- up to two packs a day.

She'll be speaking at Utah high schools this week as part of the Utah Department of Health TRUTH Campaign, urging teens not to smoke.

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VIDEO: After the smoke clears 

Look at Christine Brader's deep, amber eyes and you will see her beauty. Look beyond her contorted lips, and the jaw she lost as a three-time oral cancer survivor. Radiation took away her teeth, but she smiles.

"I still feel like I've lost a great deal, she says, "but I'm still alive. And as long as I am alive, I am going to do what I can to help other people."

Brader, 48, is sharing her face, her story and her time to tell the world about the dangers of smoking. The South Whitehall woman, who smoked about half-a-pack a day for 28 years, is featured in the national Truth campaign. Sponsored by the American Legacy Foundation, the series of ads present the unsweetened reality of those living with a serious illness caused by smoking.

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VIDEO: There's No Sugarcoating Tobacco-Related Disease 

Living with tobacco-related diseases and the devastating effects of tobacco use take center stage in the latest creative from truth®, the nation's largest smoking prevention campaign for youth.

While the American public may commonly connect tobacco use with often fatal diseases such as lung cancer and heart attacks, an estimated 8.6 million people in the United States are living with serious illnesses attributed to smoking. For many, it means suffering on a daily basis, and drastic changes from their pre-disease lifestyles.

"Unsweetened truth" is a new commercial from truth, vividly illustrating the impact of smoking on health. In the spot, six real people suffering from tobacco-related disabilities are featured on a parade float traveling through the heart of Hollywood. As the float travels along, spectators can see the obvious physical disabilities each person is living with. They can also hear the half-dozen participants "singing" a tune about the many different flavors used to enhance tobacco products.

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• AUDIO: LUMPKINS: Confessions of a 20-Something Smoker 

Donny Lumpkins, 23, a frequent KMEL Radio commentator on "Street Soldiers" in San Francisco, shares his story about how cigarettes helped him connect with people he could relate to. He also spoke with two young smokers about why they first started to smoke. Lumpkins is a content producer for New America Media's Richmond Pulse, a youth-led community media platform in Richmond, Calif.

SAN FRANCISCO -- I've been thinking a lot about smoking, and why people do it. To be honest, I'm not even completely sure why I do it.

One of the first impressions I have about smoking is of my father. . . .

I saw all the "Truth" ads while growing up, like most kids my age. I thought they were cool and edgy. But, I have to say, I learned more about vandalism and sticking it to the man than not smoking.

The ads were always filled with counterculture kids like me: good looking youngsters with cut-off gloves and bullhorns: Cool image and campaign, but it never connected with me in the way they intended. . . .

About 95 percent of my friends smoke. Most have smoked for three years or more, and most are not casual smokers, although some claim only to smoke when they drink. The ones who do admit smoking freely and regularly are hardcore smokers. It's not unusual to see them go through one or two packs a week, even more if they party and bum them out to "casual smokers," who don't buy packs because they "don't smoke."

I found a community through smoking. One that's larger than me. No matter where you are or what you're doing, if you're there long enough the smokers will congregate and separate themselves from everyone else. Some of the most meaningful conversations I've had, some of the best moments of the last few years, took place while smoking, when the other person is in a smoke silhouette. . . .

I don't plan to smoke forever, and I've never felt the need to smoke. Sometimes I will go days and forget that I haven't and either I think good for me, or time to look for a new friend.

We smoke knowing that every single puff could mean chucking a little bit more dirt on our early graves. But for now, it feels right for a lot of us. When you're young and you find something that actually feels right in the world, well, you stick with it until it doesn't feel right anymore.

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Truth: PR is key in campaigns against tobacco industry ($$) 

The tobacco industry spends more than $34 million each and every day in the US on its marketing efforts. Combating this public health threat is a David vs. Goliath battle that requires Legacy to execute an innovative and completely integrated approach to marketing, advertising, and PR.

"There is no safe level of exposure to tobacco smoke. Now let me say that again. There is no safe level of exposure to tobacco smoke." Spoken by Secretary of Health and Human Services ...

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