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Action on Smoking and Health
A National Legal-Action Antismoking Organization Entirely Supported by Tax-Deductible Contributions
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Louisiana Anti-Smoking Organizations Plan Campaigns Against Secondhand Smoke [12/27-2]
Excerpts from: Organizations plan grassroots campaigns against secondhand smoke
By Cristina Rodriguez The Shreveport Times [12/23/04]
Linda Foster watched her father lie in bed for almost six months in agony from
emphysema developed after decades of heavy smoking, yet she kept lighting up
Winstons and Marlboros.
"She said, 'I'm not getting like that,'" said her sister, Betty Nelson, who this week wrote the obituary for 61-year-old Foster. Though Foster stopped smoking at age 50 -- nine years after her father died -- she still had major respiratory problems from smoking since age 15. She left her career in banking two years ago on disability and often had problems vacuuming or doing housework, Nelson said.
The Bossier City woman died Saturday after a week and a half in the hospital with a respiratory infection. It wasn't an uncommon story for the family. Their mother, who never smoked, had lung cancer attributed to their father's cigarettes and died three months ago. An aunt had emphysema, and two uncles also died with smoking-induced illnesses. So in the paragraphs commemorating her sister's life, Nelson put out a plea to the public: "We hope those reading this obituary who are smokers will heed the dangers of smoking with its deadly consequences."
Those thoughts will be on the minds of many agencies across the state next year trying to battle what Dr. Tom Houston, director of the Louisiana Campaign for Tobacco-Free Living, says is the No. 1 killer of Louisiana residents.
The statewide campaign, run by the Louisiana Public Health Institute, is currently recruiting groups to apply for $1 million in grants collected through a 2-cent tax on every pack of cigarettes sold. So far they've been urging church groups, after-school programs, civic groups and others to think of ways they can cut back on secondhand smoke in their communities, then ask for money to help them do the project.
As many as 1,100 people die in Louisiana each year from the effects of secondhand smoke, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that for every eight smokers who die, one nonsmoker dies from exposure to secondhand smoke, Houston said.
"I guess the ultimate goal, besides reducing the immediate health effects caused by secondhand smoke, is to reduce the number of people who smoke in Louisiana by changing the way society looks at smoking, by changing the social norms that relate to smoking," he said.
The regional American Cancer Society office also has a campaign next year to spur grass-roots effort, said Dorothy Carnal, community advocacy representative. The organization is hoping to do a survey to find what types of smoking issues affect people in the region.
"We're always going to be organizing our volunteers to talk with our councilmen and go to neighborhood association meetings, to talk to people who are in neighborhoods," Carnal said.
Carnal sees anti-tobacco efforts as an evolutionary process.
"It takes a while to educate people," she said. "We know smoking is bad, the surgeon general said that many years ago. Now we're trying to bring to light that secondhand smoke is just as harmful. It's not just having a few plants and a divider and thinking (a restaurant) is smoke-free. It's going to take a separate ventilation system that is going to make that place totally healthy."
On Tuesday, Carnal drove to Lafayette for the City Council's vote on an ordinance that would ban smoking in private offices, stores, museums and restaurants that don't serve alcohol. The ordinance was tabled that night.
It's those types of anti-smoking efforts that the cancer society is hoping to encourage. The organization plans to help community groups apply for the statewide Tobacco-Free Living grants, Carnal said.
Those available are $2,500 planning grants for groups and individuals and $10,000 program grants for nonprofit agencies, organized groups and coalitions. The deadline to apply is Feb. 28.
Feamula Bradley, who coordinates the Tobacco-Free Living program in the Office of Public Health's Region 7 in northwest Louisiana, plans to have a grant-writing workshop for individuals and small groups in January.
The state program will also have $800,000 worth of grants for statewide projects available on Jan. 3.
Though the Tobacco-Free Living organization has put advertising across the state, this will be the first time such grants are available for grass-roots groups, Houston said.
"By doing those things we think we can cut down on excess health care costs," Houston said. "After, all smoking and smoking-related diseases are the leading reason people die in Louisiana."
Meanwhile, Nelson, a counselor at Meadowview Elementary School, will keep teaching students about the dangers of smoking. She'll show them a picture of healthy lungs and from lungs blackened by tobacco.
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