You know how a lung is supposed to look: Plump and pink all over, gleaming with health. Picture me now holding the lung slice at last year's Butt Out booth for SF Pride. Cropped within two clear panes of plexiglass was a sliver of diseased lung. The lung matter was grey with black marks here and there. The slice had craters in it and red pocks where blood vessels had blown up. Imagine me with the biggest grimacing look that you can imagine on a person. Someone actually had that lung! That lung slice belonged to a long-time smoker who died of a smoking related disease. Let me tell you, that lung slice validated the decision not to smoke for me and everyone passing by the booth that day. Nothing said DO NOT SMOKE better than a slice of human flesh that looked like it had been left out in the sun for days.
Massachusetts is getting graphic too. Pending approval of the Public Health Council, the state will require its 9,000 convenience stores, pharmacies, and gas stations to show posters of the physical harm caused by smoking by tobacco racks and cash registers. Consumers will have to look at pictures of degenerated lung mass and decayed teeth before making their tobacco purchases. The hope is that some of those consumers will rethink their choice. Massachusetts will be the first state to mandate anti-smoking posters at retailers and will follow New York City's lead, which has been successfully waging its own campaign (check out the pictures). Retailers will suffer $200-$300 fines if they don't put up the posters.
San Francisco should create a similar program. San Francisco already has some momentum for change with the second-hand smoking ordinance. The City should run with it. Money should not be a concern either. Massachusetts has accessed $316,000 in federal stimulus money from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to do the posters. Local workers get jobs making the posters. Maybe the City can get similar funds. Let's do it!
I always recoil when I think about the lung slice that I saw while tabling. I don't smoke and seeing the lung slice makes me not want to smoke even more. Let's hope Massachusetts succeeds in deterring people with its poster program. Why can't we do the same here?
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Keep track of the work Butt Out is doing by going to our website (www.butt-out.org/), friending us on Facebook (butt-outsanfrancisco) or by connecting with us on Twitter (twitter.com/buttoutsf).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.
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