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| SUZANNE BOYER Times-Herald Students from the Creating Smoke-Free Spaces committee at Vanier collegiate were wheeled into the gym in body bags by Regina EMS members Friday afternoon. The presentation that followed by author Georgina Lovell focused on tobacco industry marketing aimed at youth and the harmful health effects of smoking. |
| Georgina Lovell, anti-tobacco advocate and author of You Are The Target, Big Tobacco Lies, Scams - Now the Truth was invited to speak to the students. Lovell spent more than three years researching previously confidential tobacco industry documents for the book. She has been speaking to students since the book's publication.Rather than preach about the health effects of smoking, Lovell, an ex-smoker herself, provides her listeners with information on the marketing strategies used by tobacco companies to target young people and tells the sad stories of those who bought into the ads. “Specifically, I’ll be talking about information the tobacco industry hoped you’d never find out about,” said Lovell, citing tobacco industry documents going back to the 1960s that prove cigarettes are addictive and a known carcinogen. She specifically quoted a 1978 marketing study by Imperial Tobacco suggesting that smoking, in the absence of war and plagues, might be the solution to overpopulation. “We really need something for people to die of,” the study states. “They hid this information away where nobody would ever see it and when asked about it publicly, they lied,” said Lovell. “I wish I could sugar-coat some of this stuff for you, but I think you’re smarter than that. It’s information I want to give you. What you do with it is up to you.” Lovell told the students of research that discovered ways to make cigarettes more addictive, such as adding harsh chemicals like ammonia to the nicotine, and genetically modifying tobacco to get higher nicotine levels. “Quitting smoking is hard. It’s supposed to be hard,” said Lovell. “That’s how they plan it. As long as it’s hard you’ll continue to buy their products.” Students are the number one target for cigarette marketing, said Lovell, because less than one third of smokers start after age 18. She quoted Bennet LeBow, C.E.O of the Brooke Liggett Tobacco company saying, “If you are truly not going to sell to children, you are going to be out of business in 30 years.” Some of the marketing plans Lovell examined set a target of 3,000 new smokers to be recruited every day. “That’s because that’s the number of smokers that either quit smoking or die every day,” she said. Lovell warned students that smokeless or chewing tobacco is just as harmful as smoking or second-hand smoke. She told the story of Sean Marsee, who began chewing at age 12 and was diagnosed with cancer of the mouth by age 17. “The first round of surgery they had to cut out his tongue,” Lovell said, getting a gasp from the crowd. The second round didn’t go that well. With cancer in his jaw, Sean lost half his face. When he was 19 he died. Lovell’s research shows tobacco companies flavour their chewing tobacco in an effort to appeal to a child’s sweet tooth. Also, the levels of nicotine in the chew are just enough to satisfy the cravings of a child’s body. Full grown adults usually require higher levels for a buzz and they are likely to progress to smoking cigarettes to get it. “The market for these products is you and younger,” she said. Lovell told of a former tobacco executive who was asked at a U.S. congressional hearing about the youngest age tobacco advertisers would target. “If they have lips we want them,” he said. An R. J. Reynolds tobacco executive was quoted saying, “We don't smoke the s**t, we just sell it. We reserve the right to smoke for the young, the poor, the black and the stupid." The bottom line for young people is that they are pawns for cigarette makers, said Lovell. “This industry does not care about you,” she said. “From the documents I’ve read, they see you as a pair of lips and dollar signs and if you get sick from using this product, ‘We’ll just replace you tomorrow, because that’s what we do every day.’” Lovell said she found it shocking when she began looking through the documentation for her book and she gets angry when she sees “how we’re all being used for target practice” by cigarette companies. Her goal is to raise awareness about tobacco companies, and any child she can deter from smoking or chewing tobacco is a bonus that validates her efforts. The members of the Creating Smoke Free Spaces committee are definitely on board with Lovell’s message. The group formed to address the need to keep smokers away from areas frequented by students like parking lots and entrances. Primarily, the students are concerned about the area where school grounds end, just off of a stairway that leads to an entrance. “We just don’t want to walk through that every day because, as our presentation showed, you’re eventually going to be affected by it,” said Stuart Donaldson, a Grade 11 student on the committee. “It’s not exactly the healthiest thing.” The group’s ultimate goal is to designate a non-smoking “school zone,” that extends beyond school grounds, and for students to sign waivers agreeing not to smoke within the designated zone. Attendance at the school would be conditional upon signing the waiver. Tara Alexander, a Grade 12 student in the group, said the goal is to make the school healthier and more comfortable for the students. “Some of the students who smoke aren’t taking it very well, but most of the people want to see the change.” More than 80 per cent of Vanier students indicated in a survey that they would like to see the smoke free zones established at the school. |
| Copyright Moose Jaw Times Herald Reproduced by kind permission Top Stories - News Saturday, April 24, 2004 ‘They see you as a pair of lips’ SUZANNE BOYER/Times-Herald Students from the Creating Smoke-Free Spaces committee at Vanier collegiate were wheeled into the gym in body bags by Regina EMS members Friday afternoon. The presentation that followed by author Georgina Lovell focused on tobacco industry marketing aimed at youth and the harmful health effects of smoking. Students in body bags were loaded off stretchers, making a strong statement on the real dangers of tobacco during a presentation Friday afternoon at Vanier collegiate. Students on Vanier’s Creating Smoke Free Spaces committee put the afternoon together. The group, seeking a completely smoke-free school environment, is part of a Health Canada pilot project. |
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