  Generally, I agree with Care2, an online advocacy site that started off as an enivronmental site but has since started encompassing other progressive issues. But, the e-mail that I received today seemed to piss me off a bit. It said: Hi Loren, Here's a sobering fact: more women die every year from lung cancer than from breast cancer - or any other type of cancer. And for every 3 girls who get hooked on smoking, 1 will die prematurely of a tobacco-caused disease. Thank you for receiving North America Alerts from Care2 - please send a quick letter today to stop the promotion of smoking to teen girls. Your action makes a difference! Send your letter here: urlLink http://www.care2.com/go/z/14869 Did you know that 21% of high school girls smoke? Knowing all that we do about smoking today, you'd think that smoking would be much lower, right? Unfortunately for impressionable teens, smoking is still glamorized on the big screen. For example, in Sony Pictures' Mona Lisa Smile , a recent PG-13 film, every four minutes (on average) a young actress is shown smoking, talking excitedly about smoking, or displaying a pack of Camel or Winston cigarettes. That's a big deal when you consider that teens are nearly three times more likely to start smoking as a result of high exposure to smoking on the big screen. It's time to stop the entertainment industry's promotion of smoking to our daughters. Send a letter to Sony Pictures Chairman and CEO Michael Lynton asking him to stop promoting smoking in his youth-rated films!
Send your letter here: urlLink http://www.care2.com/go/z/14869 Thank you for your time today! Why does this piss me off, you ask? First, I highly disagree with censoring the media. There is this general thought that if youth see it in the media, they'll want to do it themselves. This is the same argument that I hear abstinence only advocates use -- If we pretend sex doesn't exist, youth won't think it exists. I mean, I'd like to see scientifically proven studies that showed Mona Lisa Smile led to children smoking.
In the case of this movie, I also think that it creates an inaccurate view of what America and American women were like during the 1950s. Smoking was big back then. Companies such as Philip Morrison even advertised on beloved television shows such as I Love Lucy and The Flintstones (Yes, the Flinstones!). Instead of censoring a film, use it as a teachable moment. What was going on at the time that made smoking so glamorous?
What factors brought young women to smoke during that era? What is the difference between the 1950s and now? Etc, etc. The second reason why this e-mail pissed me off is because, again, it's another campaign that really doesn't address the root of why people smoke. It's easier to blame the media than look at what kind of sociological and/or physchological reasons bring people to smoke. I can say this because I, now, am an ex-smoker. I didn't start chain smoking because I saw it in a movie. In fact, there are very few smokers that I know that started because of seeing it in a movie. Anti-smoking campaigns drive me nuts because they fill their commercials with "sobering" statistics about heart and lung disease in relation to smoking. These, I would venture to say, are the same people who think they're being helpful when they say "you know those things are bad for you. " "Bad for me? Whatever do you mean? I seemed to have missed the GIANT warning label from the Surgeon General on the side of the package and let's not even mention the thousands of anti-smoking campaigns and people like you who point it out every time I have a cigarette. In fact, this conversation is stressing me out so much that I'm going to have one. Move now or I'll blow smoke in your face.
" Honestly, I think anti-smoking campaigns need to move away from the health talk...or, at least, not make this the central message of everything. I'll tell you why I started smoking (and, I truly believe that there are many people like me)... Slow suicide . Oh, I didn't wake up one morning and say to myself, "I think I want to slowly kill myself. " But, I think stress brings on both conscious and subconscious forms of depression which can put you in to contact with hidden forms of despair. The anti-smoking commercials about health actually wanted to make me smoke more. For example, those urlLink thetruth.com sports, I think, contributed to the rise in my smoking habbit.
Before they started airing, I smoked maybe half a pack a day. After they started airing, a pack and half a day. Sometimes, I tried to smoke 4 cigarettes while the PSA was airing just to spite them. Maybe that's mean...but, it's the truth. And, most smokers I know felt the same way about urlLink thetruth.com . So, what got me to stop?
Realizing that, for me, my issue...the issue that causes me the most stress is control. By telling myself that I no longer controlled the cigarettes, but the cigarettes controlled me, I was able to stop...cold turkey, even. Now, I'm not saying that everybody is the same as me, but what I am saying is that anti-smoking campaigns need to get a grip on what will realistically get people to stop smoking and buying from the corporations they find to be so evil. Campaigns, such as the e-mail above, only indicate to me that anti-smoking advocates still don't get it. 
