Supreme Court Produces Mixed Result

The Supreme Court ended its term for the year this week. They issued a number of major decisions that will impact our lives for years to come. One Court action that is relevant to the anti-smoking community is a refusal to hear appeals by the tobacco industry and the federal government. The Court let stand an appellate decision that found the tobacco industry guilty of civil racketeering. The tobacco companies challenged the decision on First Amendment grounds. The court also refused to force the tobacco companies to pay back its profits - an estimated $280 billion. The federal government had appealed that aspect of the decision. I am pleased by the decision to find the tobacco companies liable but think the decision's force is weakened by the decision not to allow profit disgorgement.

What went into holding the tobacco companies guilty of civil racketeering? The lower court judge termed the tobacco companies' actions a half-century of lying over the health effects of smoking. In the 2006 case, United States District Judge Gladys Kessler concluded in a ruling of more than 1,500 pages that for more than 50 years, cigarette companies had “lied, misrepresented and deceived the American public, including smokers and the young people they avidly sought as ‘replacement’ smokers, about the devastating health effects of smoking and environmental tobacco smoke.” The decision is a powerful rebuke of the industry that has unrelentingly preyed on consumers.

This decision touches on the tobacco company exploitation of the LGBT community. Tobacco companies are specifically targeting LGBT communities because they know that populations that are being discriminated against are more vulnerable. When they target us, tobacco companies reinforce the messaging that feeds into that vulnerability. One way they do this is through advertising. Tobacco companies began to target us with advertising in 1991, when the first tobacco ad appeared in GENRE magazine. Some of the ads are subtle appeals to our community, “gay vague” ads as they are called and others are more obvious, such as the ad for American Spirit that appeared in the Advocate on June 21st, 2005. It says, “freedom. To speak. To choose. To marry. To participate. To be. To disagree. To inhale. To believe. To love. To live. It’s all good.” This outrageous ad equates the freedom to marry with the freedom to smoke. The tobacco industry pursuit of LGBT people is part of the larger victimization of the public.

The public is fighting back with decisions like the one the Supreme Court upheld. Hopefully the courts will later force the companies to disgorge its blood profits and go out of business. Good riddance to them!

With this said, have a happy 4th. I hope the only thing smoking around you on Independence Day will be the barbecue.

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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.

Smoking and A Frustrated Four Faced Liar

Childhood sweethearts Greg and Molly are new to New York. They left their quiet corner of America for the Big Apple to start a new life. They hope that life becomes more exciting and interesting. One night they decide to go to a hip Greenwich Village bar called the Four Faced Liar. They don't smoke in the bar - smoking is banned in bars in New York. They sip their drinks. They meet a couple, Bridget and her best friend Trip. Sparks fly immediately between Molly and Bridget. The two couples start hanging out after meeting in the bar. Molly and Bridget develop a steamy relationship challenging Molly's relationship with Greg. And so goes the drama of the Frameline movie The Four-Faced Liar.

Imagine if Greg and Molly could smoke in the bar. Molly lights up and sucks on the noxious death sticks while simultaneously nursing her beer. How gross! I can only imagine what smoke tastes like with the sudsy beverage. I don't know about you but I don't like to mix the taste of ashtrays with my beverages. I can never understand why smokers like to smoke while drinking and eating. Doesn't it kill the flavor of the food?

Anyway, picture Molly cocking her head back and blowing smoke rings into the air. Greg doesn't find it cool - he can't wait for Molly to quit smoking. He can already picture the walls of their new apartment turning yellow. Echh!

Molly thinks she is sexy smoking. That is the furthest from the truth to Bridget. She and Trip are sitting at a nearby table drinking jack and cokes. The smoke wafts their way. That's one way to kill a buzz. Bridget feels her personal space, not to mention her health, being violated. Bridget thinks Molly is kind of cute but she would never approach her. Bridget has a strict no smoker policy for dating.

Bridget tells Trip to move to another table.

Bridget spies another cute woman - a non-smoker - exchanging witty banter with her friend. Bridget decides to approach the girl. She takes a deep swig from her drink for added courage and motions Trip to walk to the two women. Bridget and the woman immediately hit it off. They exchange numbers and agree to go on a date. One date becomes two dates becomes moving in on the third date becomes marriage in Massachusetts two months later. Bridget has found her life mate.

Molly and Greg meanwhile start a life in New York. They eventually marry too. Life moves on day to day. In the back of her mind Molly has this nagging feeling that life is missing something, that Greg might not be everything for her. She can't pin down what she is missing. Is this all there is?

Greg still wants Molly to quit smoking. Her worries about both of their healths. Can't she just quit!

What a different movie The Four-Faced Liar becomes when smoking is allowed in the bar! Smoking turns people off and harms their health. Unlike the claims of some people, smoking bans in bars adds to the atmosphere in the establishment and promotes business. Nonsmokers can enjoy their time in the establishments without the interference and hazard of smoke. Smoking bans can even promote love!

Have fun at Frameline and look out for Butt Out's PSAs. We hope you find someone special at any of the film festival's smoke free events. Enjoy!

Stay in Touch!

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.

Happy Pride!

This weekend is Pride! What will you do?

My Pride weekend will be jam packed. I can't wait to participate in the trans march on Friday. I'm really looking forward to seeing "Dyke Delights" on Saturday as part of the Frameline film festival. Afterwards I am going to take to the streets in the Mission and the Castro as I join other women in the Dyke March. My Saturday will be capped off with a good time at Pink Saturday on Castro Street. Sunday of course will be the Pride parade. My girlfriend Carmel and I still need a battle plan for where we will view the Parade. This year will be the first in several years that I am not volunteering. I get to see the floats! My Pride experience will end with a romp through the Pride booths.

I am hoping for a good time. One thing I worry about is being surrounded by smokers. Market Street will be jam packed with people on the sidewalks. Imagine being pressed on all sides by people trying to get a peak at the hotties on the float coming by. You can't move anywhere. All of a sudden you are overcome by the smell of smoke. Someone in back of you is smoking and the breeze is carrying over to you. You have no choice but to endure the stench and the dangerous fumes. It is not an inconsequential thing to be exposed to secondhand smoke. There is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke. Secondhand smoking takes 4,000 lives in California from lung cancer and heart disease alone. Unbelievable!

Events like Pride bring out our community in force. Unfortunately it brings out our addictions in force too. There will be a lot of smoking on the streets. The statistics are really amazing. In California, men in the LGBT community smoke about 50% more than all men. Women in our community smoke nearly three times as much as all women. Transgender members of our community smoke twice as much as all Californians. And most alarming of all - LGBT young adults 18-24 years old smoke over two and a half times as much as all young adults (43.7% vs. 16.6%). There will be a lot of people lighting up!

I hope that through the advocacy of groups like Butt Out that we can get the message to smokers that there is a different way to live. We also need to decrease the exposure of innocent bystanders to secondhand smoke. I'd like to go to a Pride celebration that is filled with nothing but blue skies, fresh air and half naked men and women. Here's to hoping.

Have a fantastic Pride!

Stay in Touch!

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.

World No Tobacco Day

World No Tobacco Day happened Monday. The World Health Organization (WHO) organized the day. Its theme for the global anti-smoking day was "gender and tobacco" and the harmful effects of tobacco marketing and smoking on women and girls. Countries in the developing world are seeing a rise in women smoking as women become more affluent and have more disposable income to spend on cigarettes. Tobacco companies are beginning to target this increasingly empowered segment of the population. This trend of increased female smoking is mirrored in the LGBT community in California where lesbians and bisexual women smoke nearly three times as much as heterosexual women. The trend worldwide is very troubling.

Tobacco is the second major cause of death in the world, currently responsible for the death of one in 10 adults worldwide, or about 5 million deaths each year, said the WHO. Women make up about 20 percent of the world's 1 billion smokers, but if current tobacco usage continues smoking will kill 8 million people a year by 2030 -- 2.5 million will be women.

Even more alarming is the incidence of smoking among youth. It is estimated that more than 8 percent of girls between 13 and 15, or around 4.7 million girls, are using tobacco products in the Asia-Pacific region, said the WHO. Compare that to LGBT youth smoking in California where 43.7% of LGBT youth smoke!

We have to protect our young people worldwide from the ravages of smoking.

A YouTube video of an Indonesian two-year-old boy, who reportedly smokes two packs of cigarettes a day, angered anti-smoking groups around the world last week. The video has been removed by YouTube.

"The tobacco industry is thriving and if we look at our society, even children have started to smoke," Krida Wacana Christian University (Ukrida) student Stefano Leatemia told The Jakarta Post newspaper on Monday.

WHO is calling for comprehensive bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship to protect women and girls from images that portray smoking as glamorous or fashionable. Only half of the nations in the Asia-Pacific have bans on tobacco advertising.

We need more than a No Tobacco Day. We need a No Tobacco Life. With activism and personal encouragement we can help keep all of us, including our most vulnerable citizens, from becoming slaves to the noxious product.

Stay in Touch!

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.

It's Movie Time!

Frameline is coming right up this June! Frameline is the film festival that portrays the diversity of our queer lives. Butt Out is right in the middle of the action. We are the official sponsor of a collection of short films, The Golden Pin, and we are the Community Partner of a feature film, The Four-Faced Liar. Butt Out is also helping to counteract the impact of the smoking that takes place in these films by running two different public service announcements that creatively address the hazards of smoking.

The two movies that Butt Out is connected with are pretty good. The Four-Faced Liar is a flick about a hetero couple, Greg and Molly, that moves to New York City looking for new adventures. They find it when they meet Bridget and Trip at a bar called The Four-Faced Liar. Molly and Bridget become friends - the dangerously smoldering kind. Molly has to sort out her feelings when she has a fight with Greg and runs into the arms of Bridget. The movie is playing June 20 at 6:30 at the Castro Theater. This should be a good one!

The Golden Pin should be a good time too. This is a series of shorts featuring Asian characters that is geared toward the boys. The films include Waiting 4 Goliath, The Golden Pin, Little Love, Peking Turkey, Masala Mama and Little. The Golden Pin is a diverse assortments of stories about gay love and experience. Butt Out's PSA that will run before this collection of shorts is an encore of last year's popular "boys" PSA that humorously discusses the link between impotence and smoking. The Golden Pin is playing June 23 at 4:00 PM at the Castro Theater. Mark your calendar!

It is really important that Butt Out is running these PSAs. Smoking is endemic in the movies. The tobacco companies love it that way and pay for product placements. Smoking in the movies is harmful to people, particularly children and young adults. The more smoking young people see on screen, the more likely they are to become smokers and, later in life, to die from tobacco-related diseases. R-rating future smoking would avert 60,000 tobacco deaths a year in the U.S. This is a really big deal to our community especially since so many LGBT films contain smoking and our queer young adults smoke more than twice as much as others their age!

Think about the impact of smoking in the movies the next time you go to the movies. In the meantime, check out Butt Out's sponsored and Community Partner movies at Frameline and enjoy our PSAs. I'll be there, popcorn in hand.

Stay in Touch!

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.

Massachusetts Makes the Tobacco Fight Graphic

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?

Stay in Touch

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.

Schwarzenegger Lacks Leadership on Smoking Ban

We can all feel good about the second-hand smoking ban in San Francisco. The ban will help everyone enjoy smokefree movie lines and restaurant patios, among other things. LGBT people benefit and LGBT smokers might even be motivated to give up the habit. We cannot become complacent in our victory, however. Statewide, our grand old governor, the Arnold, has vetoed a bill that would ban smoking in our state parks and beaches. Our collective wilds are still at the mercy of smokers. Shame, shame, governor!

Has this ever happened to you? It is a sunny day. You are at the beach. The breeze is coursing through your hair as you walk hand in hand with your loved one. You admire the ocean waves and contemplate your small but glorious place in the world. You imagine yourself as one grain of sand in the universe and look down to admire the tan waves of surf. Then you see it. A collection of cigarette butts with a beer bottle on the ground. These little nasties are ground into the sand, with their white filters poking out of the top. Your mood is immediately shot.

How can we enjoy our parks and oceans when people litter these areas with cigarrette butts? This garbage tarnishes the serenity of the scenes. They are pollution too and harm the fragile ecosystems that our fabulous state supports. Equally vexatious is the second-hand smoking that people are exposed to when they congregate together on camp grounds and other shared spots on the wilds. Smoking is a menace to our state parks and beaches.

Our cigar smoking governor failed us all. He also went against the recommendations of experts on the issue, the California Ocean Protection Council. Schwarzenegger said that the smoking ban was too intrusive and that state parks and beaches individually could ban smoking. He also said that smoking could be discouraged with added penalties and fines.

These arguments are unavailing. If he thinks that smoking bans are permissible on an individual basis, he has no good reason to promote smoking on a statewide basis. Additionally, penalties and fines can be used with a smoking ban to discourage the noxious practice. Not only does Schwarzenegger's arguments fall flat, they fail against the practice of countless governments. Hundreds of communities nationwide have enacted smoking bans at municipal parks and beaches. Maine is the only state to ban smoking at its state beaches.

I plan to visit Muir Woods with my sweetie this weekend. I want to enjoy the elements without seeing cigarrette butts dotting the grounds. This is less likely with Schwarzenegger's veto. Take one of your cigars and put it up in your wild areas, Arnold!

Stay in Touch

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.