Great American Smoke Out urges smokers to quit

MAT-SU -- Students at Palmer and Wasilla high schools will be asked to sign a pledge to remain smoke free on Thursday the 26th annual Great American Smoke Out day sponsored by the American Cancer Society.

"It's a commitment to remain smoke free as a lifestyle choice," said BreatheFree Mat Su program coordinator John Stinson about the pledges. "We are trying to get people to make a decision."

Those who sign the pledge will not only be rewarded a healthier life than their smoking counterparts, they will also receive a discount at North Bowl that afternoon from 3:30 to 5:30; two hours of bowling with shoes for only $6, more than a 50-percent discount.

Students from other high schools are encouraged to come to North Bowl and sign pledges at the business, located on the Palmer-Wasilla Highway. Stinson said he hopes to get students from some of the other high schools in the area to not only sign pledges at North Bowl, but hopefully step up to the plate and take pledges to their high schools that day. BreatheFree Mat Su is providing information and props for the schools on the 20th, but the students themselves are the ones pushing for their peers to remain smoke free.

Teens Against Tobacco Use and the youth advocacy board are coordinating the smoke free event at the schools; BreatheFree Mat Su advises both of these programs.

Talkeetna is celebrating the Great American Smoke Out with a 'For the Health of It' program from 5:30 to 8:30 at the senior center on Friday. BreatheFree Mat Su will have a booth at the program, and other healthy choices, from nutrition to yoga, will be explained and/or demonstrated.

The first 'Don't Smoke Day' started in Minnesota in 1974, it caught on in California in 1976, where more than 1 million tobacco users quite for one day. The first nationwide Great American Smoke Out was sponsored by the American Cancer Society in 1977.

For more information on the Great American Smoke Out in the Valley, challenging youth and adults alike to quite tobacco for the day, visit www.breathefreematsu.org.

Tobacco ads to be eliminated from school editions of weekly news magazines

Principal tobacco companies whose advertising has appeared in Time, Newsweek and U.S. News and World Report have agreed to the request by Attorneys General throughout the country that they remove advertising for their cigarette and smokeless tobacco brands from copies of those magazines that are sent to schools as part of the magazines' school programs.

Brown and Williams Tobacco Corp., Philip Morris USA Inc., R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., and U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Co. all entered into the agreement to refrain from advertising in editions of the three publications that are headed for classrooms. The four companies had placed approximately 120 cigarette and smokeless tobacco ads in these three magazines from January 2002 through January 2003.

"It sends a mixed message to our children when we tell them smoking is harmful and then subject them to tobacco advertising in school," said Alaska's Attorney General Gregg Renkes. "It is our job to protect our children. We see this as a big victory for children and parents in Alaska and across the country."

The magazines' school programs, known as Time Classroom, Newsweek Education Program and the U.S. News Classroom Extension Program, distribute hundreds of thousands of copies of the magazines to high school and middle school classrooms in the United States each week.

The Tobacco Enforcement Committee of the National Association of Attorneys General wrote to the four companies in June, asking that they make arrangements with the publishers to ensure that their tobacco ads did not appear in the classroom editions. Discussions with the companies ensued, culminating in each company's commitment to eliminate its ads from those editions.