Smoking prevention groups go after tobacco ads targeting gays
The cigarette pitch demands a second look.
Two ripped, rakish men and one lean, pristine hound pause, inexplicably, in the cool shallows of a calm green sea.
“How gay is this ad?” R.E. Szego, a Portland tobacco-prevention specialist, asks when she sees such an image.
It’s a sincere question, not a slam.
Wooed for years by tobacco companies — who lavish free merchandise on their bars and clubs, sponsor their events and advertise heavily in their publications — gays, lesbians and bisexuals remain hooked on cigarettes, even as the general population smokes less.
But public health specialists are optimistic that a new ban on smoking in Oregon bars will cause a decline in the smoking rates of gays and lesbians, who tend to pick up the habit as teens coming to terms with stigma surrounding their sexual identity.
“If you were coming up gay, it used to be the only place you got to meet was in a bar,” says Michael Kaplan, executive director of Cascade AIDS Project and a former pack-a-day smoker. “If you wanted to fit in, you’d smoke.”
About one in three gay, lesbian and bisexual Oregonians smoke, compared to about one in five smokers in the state’s overall population, according to the public health division of the Oregon Department of Human Services. The disparity is worse among gay, lesbian and bisexual teens, who are 2 1/2 times more likely to smoke than their straight peers. What’s more, half of all gay Oregon smokers say they don’t want to quit.
Nationally, tobacco-related illnesses such as cancer and heart disease kill about 30,000 gays, lesbians and bisexuals each year, reports the American Cancer Society. AIDS kills about half as many, straight people included, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. See Smoking prevention groups go after tobacco ads targeting gays
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