Brian Davis Goes 'Out in the Bay'

Last Thursday Butt Out's Brian Davis had an exciting interview on "Out in the Bay," an LGBT themed show on KALW 91.7 FM. You can listen to the show on www.kalw.org. He talked about the problem of LGBT smoking, how the tobacco companies target the LGBT community, the special impact of smoking on LGBT youth and the work that Butt Out is doing to fight the tobacco companies in the community.

Brian entered the interview with a lot of passion. Brian is personally motivated to do anti-tobacco advocacy. He has asthma and chafed as a child at having to inhale the smoke from his father's cigarettes. He was also pained to see his father try over and over again to quit his two pack a day habit. Brian had a lot to offer on the interview that came from a personal place.

Brian highlighted a number of powerful considerations in the fight against big tobacco.

Smoking is a Highly Prevalent Killer in the LGBT Community

LGBT people smoke more than straight people - two times more. Gay men smoke 50% more than straight men in California. Lesbians smoke three times more than straight women. LGBT people also start smoking younger than straight people, at ages 14 or 15. Some research indicates that it is significantly harder to quit smoking if a person starts smoking before age 18. The smoking rates are hard to hear considering that tobacco kills more people than murder, suicide, traffic accidents, drugs and alcohol combined! LGBT people are disproportionately counted in the 400,000 tobacco deaths every year in the United States.

Smoking Hits LGBT Youth Hard

Brian discussed the troubling problem of LGBT youth smoking. Fully 43.7% of LGBT youth smoke in California - nearly half of the LGBT youth population! A 2006 University of Minnesota study highlighted some of the reasons why. Many youth suffered trauma, abuse and ostracism from their homes and communities for being gay. Smoking is a way to escape the pain and make friends. "Do you have a light" is a conversation starter for the young LGBT person searching for community. Brian emphasized that the the community needs to take steps to change its face with respect to smoking so that LGBT youth have different models to emulate in their behavior. Brian pointed to Butt Out's Grim Reaper event as an example of the community coming together against tobacco. The Grim Reaper event was a bit of street theater in the Castro where the tobacco "Grim Reaper" was chased out of the neighborhood. The LGBT community needs to do more to steer LGBT youth down the right path.

The Tobacco Companies Target the LGBT Community

While still reticent to embrace a highly stigmatized community, tobacco companies have targeted the LGBT community in an effort to turn our community's fierce brand loyalty into equally fierce addiction. The tobacco companies have used advertising as a weapon in their arsenal. Genre magazine in 1992 published the first pro-gay tobacco ad. Since then the tobacco companies have put out ads purporting to support gay rights even as they push cigarettes on gay people. One recent ad in fact equated the freedom to marry with the freedom to inhale tobacco smoke. Brian expressed his shock at the demeaning of our struggle for equality as well as at the hypocrisy of an industry that supports conservative politicians as well as LGBT organizations.

Butt Out Works with LGBT Organizations to Combat Big Tobacco

Brian pointed out that tobacco companies try to garner support in the community by giving money to LGBT organizations. They try to leverage the good will of the organizations to make themselves look good. The support is inch deep - they spend more money advertising the fact that they support LGBT organizations than actually funding LGBT organizations.

Butt Out is inoculating the LGBT community against tobacco company machinations by getting organizations to spurn tobacco funding and adopt tobacco-free funding policies. The work is hard to do in these difficult funding times. Brian pointed out that companies can see the justice of Butt Out's position by considering whether they would take money from a company whose product gave AIDS to half its consumers. An organization should consider taking tobacco money as unconscionable as taking money from the hypothetical company.

Butt Out can point to some successes in its work. 20 Bay Area based LGBT organizations have tobacco-free policies, including the National Center for Lesbian Rights and San Francisco Pride. All LGBT politicians in the Bay Area such as Mark Leno have pledged not to accept campaign donations from tobacco companies. Butt Out continues to raise consciousness in community organizations and add to the community of groups rejecting tobacco funding.

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Butt Out is a project of Breathe California, funded by the San Francisco Tobacco Free Project, which works to get tobacco money out of LGBT community organizations in San Francisco. We also educate the public about the hazards of smoking and about smoking cessation.