Overall smoking is down, but pretty much every adult who does smoke started in their teens, and big tobacco is still able to advertise directly to them. Help us do something about that!
This post was sponsored by Tobacco Free New York State as part of an Influencer Activation for Influence Central, and all opinions expressed in my post are my own.
Tobacco advertising
By the time I was born, cigarette advertising had been banned on TV and radio. But I would still see giant billboards with cigarette ads, and they would go by on the sides of buses. Those weren’t banned until much later
These days, since you can’t put an ad on TV or on a billboard, a ton of cigarette advertising happens at the point of sale. According to the Seen Enough Tobacco website, tobacco companies spend almost a half million dollars every day advertising in stores, with big glossy displays and huge signs.
And kids can clearly see this advertising, every day.
That’s where Tobacco Free NYS and Seen Enough Tobacco come in.
Teen smoking rates
According to the CDC, teen smoking is down, which is great! But more than 34 million adults still smoke, and almost 9 out of 10 of those smokers started smoking when they were teens.
In fact, the average age of a new smoker in New York State is just thirteen years old!!
I’m no scientist, but what I get from those statistics is this: if you can manage to get through your teenage years without smoking, there’s a really good chance that you never will.
E-cigarette use
And I haven’t even mentioned e-cigarettes yet. Those could be a whole other post. E-cigarette use went up 160% among high school students between 2014 and 2018.
Enough!
Point-of-sale cigarette ads are a giant loophole in all of the laws and regulations that are meant to keep tobacco advertising away from kids.
Tobacco Free NYS has been working to try to get the laws changed around cigarette advertising in stores. You can sign the petition on the Seen Enough Tobacco website and pledge your support, as well as find out other ways to help.
My story
I somehow managed not to smoke even a single cigarette in my entire life, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t putting myself at risk for lung cancer and other smoking-related diseases.
I worked in four different restaurants that had smoking sections. I breathed in cigarette smoke almost daily for years.
I’m really glad that my own teens won’t have to face that now that they’re old enough to work.
Video Transcript
This post is sponsored by Tobacco Free New York State as part of an influencer activation by Influence Central. All opinions expressed in my post are my own.
When I was in my early 20s I mostly had waitressing jobs. I worked in four different restaurants. I was a waitress in three of them and a hostess and another one.
And all of them were filled with smoke. I mean every restaurant had a smoking section back then and I inhaled a lot of smoke in my 20s even though I’ve never smoked a cigarette myself.
And my son is now 17 and he’s actively looking for a job for the summer and I’m just really relieved that that’s not a choice that’s- that he’s going to have to make because you know you can’t smoke in restaurants anymore.
So if he gets a job as a waiter or a busboy or something like that he won’t, he won’t have to damage his lungs. And his lungs are super important. I mean everybody’s lungs are important but he’s a musician. So his have to be in tip top shape.
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