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Tobacco ads trick you into addiction, speaker shows  

Bailey Quanbeck thinks her classmates may think twice before deciding to smoke, now that they know some of the ingredients in cigarettes.

"I was surprised to find out that fingernail polish was in them," the eighth grader said.

Brandon Valley Middle School students learned about the dangers of tobacco from Peter DeBenedittis, a former ad agency director who now tours the country telling people how tobacco advertising tricks people into using the product.

"What fires together, wires together," was the main theme of three talks he gave March 5 in Brandon. After speaking to middle school students in the morning, he spoke to high school students in the afternoon and community members that evening. The daytime presentations were sponsored by a grant that school counselor Amy Lupkes arranged. The evening presentation was sponsored by the Brandon Tobacco Prevention Coalition, through a grant from the South Dakota Department of Human Services. . . .

"From junior high through high school, half a million ads hit your brain," he said. The ads equate smoking with glamour, power, sex, fun, beauty and other desirable things. But smoking doesn't deliver, Small said. She saw her grandfather "slowly suffocate" from emphysema caused by smoking. "It was absolutely terrible," she said.

"Once you're on it, you can't quit. Kids need to know that it's not just something you can do for a short time and then think when you're older it's not cool any more. It doesn't work that way."

During the evening session, DeBenedittis showed parents what the subliminal messages were behind the ads.

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