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 Legacy Looks Ahead:
Envisioning the FDA's Impact on U.S. Tobacco Consumption by 2015
 Marking the one-year anniversary of the passage of The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, Legacy hosted a panel discussion to examine the new programmatic and regulatory landscape around tobacco control. The new law, signed into law by President Obama on June 22 of 2009 and giving the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulatory authority over tobacco, is an unprecedented public health victory and years from now, could be lauded as a true tipping point in the rapid decline of smoking and changing of social norms surrounding tobacco in the United States. At the lecture, Dr. David Kessler, former commissioner of the FDA, called on the FDA to reduce the nicotine level in cigarettes, reducing the yield to non-addictive levels.
"The FDA should quickly move to reduce nicotine levels in cigarettes to non-addictive levels. If we reduce the level of the stimulus, we reduce the craving. It is the ultimate harm reduction strategy," said Dr. Kessler. "The law prohibits banning of cigarettes and reducing nicotine levels to zero, this policy does neither."
Other panelists included Legacy president and CEO Dr. Cheryl Healton, Matt Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and John Payton, director-counsel and president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
"It is a national embarrassment that these lethal menthol products have been allowed to be marketed so disproportionately to African-American youth - or to any youth for that matter," said John Payton, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. "Menthol has been the bridge to entice youth to start smoking - resulting in 80 percent of African-American adult smokers now smoking menthol. We have to shut it down."
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Read the joint statement, recognizing the anniversary, from Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Heart Association, American Lung Association and Legacy. |
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| LGBT Americans Smoke at Up to Twice the Rate of the General Population
In June, LGBT Pride events across the country bring about a sense of affirmation and empowerment to the LGBT community as a whole, making it an ideal time for LGBT smokers to quit this tough addiction.Tobacco-related deaths are the leading causes of preventable death in the U.S., and smoking rates are disproportionately high in the LGBT community. Whether social stress or the tobacco industry targeting influences the population to smoke, it takes a deadly toll. More LGBT Americans smoke than their heterosexual counterparts, and research indicates a wide range of smoking prevalence for LGBT adults, ranging from 25 percent to 44 percent among the different subgroups. The prevalence of smoking among bisexual men is almost two times that among heterosexual men, and the smoking rate of lesbian women is 1.7 to 2.4 times higher than women in the general population. To learn more about helpful ways to quit, BecomeAnEX.org provides direct support to LGBT quitters with specific LGBT groups within the EX community including:
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Give Kids the Gift of More Days with Dad
About 24 percent of U.S. men smoke and tobacco-related disease will kill more than 269,000 American men each year. For those men who die of smoking-related disease - they lose on average 11.5 years of their lives. That is 11.5 years that could be spent celebrating family events, special times with friends, and graduations, weddings, births of children and grandchildren. As we celebrate Father's Day in June, the month offers a time for those fathers across the country that are struggling to quit smoking the chance to re-evaluate their addictions and make a plan to quit smoking. In addition to quitting themselves and setting a good example, fathers can get involved in valuable ways both directly and indirectly year-round, by engaging with their children about the issue of tobacco.
While most smokers start in their teens, recent news reports and viral Internet videos of toddlers and their addiction to cigarettes are a reminder to all parents of the moral imperative to keep all kids from the harm and deadly consequences of tobacco use. To read more ways parents can help provide a supportive and tobacco-free environment for their children, download our fact sheet that offers 10 things parents can do to keep kids from smoking.
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Barbecues, Baseball...and The truth® Tour
truth, the nation's largest smoking prevention campaign for youth, begins its 11th annual nationwide summer tour on Friday, June 25, with tour stops in California and New York City. Every year, truth crews connect with more than 500,000 teens, allowing teens to experience the campaign first-hand with interactive games, contests and more. This year, two crews and their signature orange "truth trucks" will make more than 60 stops across more than 25 states, as they travel to some of the season's hottest teen-oriented events.
One crew will spend the summer traveling with
Vans Warped Tour, an annual summer rock festival featuring upcoming bands as well as more well-known rock and punk acts. A second truth crew will appear at different events including the AST Dew Tour and the Afro-Punk Festival. truth® will also make impromptu, unannounced appearances at popular teen-oriented events and venues such as festivals, skate parks, beaches and more in cities like New York, Atlanta, and Washington, DC, among others. Read more about the tour here.
The summer tour will be enhanced online at www.thetruth.com, which receives approximately 60,000 visitors per month. At the site, users can learn about truth, meet the tour's crew members, view video blogs and photos from the field, find out where upcoming events will be taking place, and view updates from tour stops. Free tickets to events can also be won via online contests.
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Smoking Support for the Mentally Ill
According to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, almost 80 percent of people in the United States with serious mental illness (SMI) smoke. When compared with the general population, individuals with SMI are at greater risk of co-morbid health problems and premature death. Research shows that individuals with mental illness consume nearly half of all tobacco sold in the U.S. Yet, many individuals with mental illness remain unaware of programs to help them quit smoking, and too few of those programs provide integrated approaches to tobacco cessation in mental health settings that include peer supports.
On July 1, 2010, Colleen McKay from the University of Massachusetts Medical School will host a discussion at Legacy to address specific concerns about tobacco use and people with SMI. McKay will discuss her Legacy-funded project that engages this population in integrating tobacco cessation activities with existing health promotion activities. To attend this informing and engaging presentation, please RSVP to: lgreto@legacyforhealth.org.
Thursday, July 1
2 - 3 p.m. EST
1724 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, D.C. 20036
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New Legacy Collaboration ToolkitLegacy has published a new toolkit on collaboration that aims at
helping tobacco control directors and program managers understand collaboration
as a continuum of relationships and levels of engagement among the members of a
collective effort. It can be used as a tool to find out where the current
partnership projects are along the collaboration continuum and where they need
to be to ensure that current collaborative strategies and elements match the
desired project outcomes. This also assists organizations in assessing
the effectiveness of current collaboration strategies and making appropriate
changes. The toolkit was developed as a supplement to, "Building
Effective Collaborations: Organizations Working Together in Tobacco Control" and is available online at http://www.legacyforhealth.org/PDF/Collaboration_Toolkit.pdf.
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Nominate a Deserving Colleague for Legacy's Community Activist Award
Legacy is pleased to announce the call for nominations for the 2010 Community Activist Award. The award celebrates exceptional individuals who demonstrate extraordinary commitment to creating a tobacco-free world in their local communities. Each nominee must be a recognized leader in his or her community with experience spearheading innovative and influential tobacco control projects, especially those that reflect Legacy's mission to build a world where young people reject tobacco and anyone can quit. The winner will receive a $2500 honorarium.
Nominations are being accepted online: http://www.legacyforhealth.org/caa.aspx.
DEADLINE FOR NOMINATIONS - Friday, September 17, 2010
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Award-Winning truth Campaign Does it Again
Legacy's truth Orange Summer Tour did it again by winning its second consecutive Stevie Award at the American Business Awards. The Stevie Award was created in 2004 to generate public recognition of the achievements and positive contributions of organizations and business people around the globe. On June 21, 2010 in New York City, the truth campaign took home a "Stevie" for PR Campaign of the Year for the truth Orange Summer Tour 2009, in the category of Public Service Campaigns. Last Year Legacy was honored with a Stevie Award for PR Campaign of the Year for the truth Orange Summer Tour 2008, in the category of Non-Profit Campaigns by a Non-Profit Organization. Along with Legacy, some other notable winners include: Ford Motor Company, CNN.com, Hilton Hotels, and Apple Inc.
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Free Webinar: Big Tobacco's Corporate Responsibility Shifts Blame Back Onto Public
The Public Health Advocacy Institute will be holding a free webinar on Tuesday, June 29, 2010 from 2:30 pm to 3:30 pm EDT. Topics covered will include:
- The tobacco industry's strategic use of corporate social responsibility rhetoric and tactics to normalize its image and stave off further regulation and litigation.
- How the tobacco industry uses personal responsibility rhetoric to shift the onus for public health from corporations back to the public.
- Examples of specific programs and campaigns that have been used to shift blame from the industry to the public.
- Tips on how tobacco control and public health advocates can combat the tobacco industry's attempts at a corporate makeover.
Attendees also will be given access to downloadable issue briefs giving more detailed evidence that can be used to bolster future program initiatives, interventions and counter-marketing efforts. Please email carawilking@phaionline.org to register.
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