Smoking cessation advocates gather in Palmer

PALMER — Scores of advocates are set to descend on the city next week with a simple message for tobacco users: take it outside.

“It’s not about the smoker, it’s about the smoke,” said Becky Stoppa, communications director and tobacco prevention and control coordinator for Alaska Family Services Inc. “We respect anybody’s right to smoke. We just ask that it take place outside. “

The summit scheduled April 27-29 is an annual affair put on by the Alaska Tobacco Control Alliance. Stoppa said local anti-smoking advocates put in a bid at last year’s conference on the Kenai Peninsula and brought the event to Palmer.

She said that statewide, indoor smoking bans have passed in nine Alaska communities — Anchorage, Juneau, Sitka, Klawock, Unalaska, Bethel, Haines, Skagway and Petersburg. The goal is to eventually pass a statewide law like more than half the other states have.

“That larger victory is won one small community at a time,” Stoppa said.

Mat-Su isn’t quite there. A handful of local bars have made the switch voluntarily and a few are trying it out. Many are worried a ban on smoking will mean a drop in business.

“That’s a myth that the tobacco industry has invested billions in promoting,” Stoppa said.

Next week’s conference begins with a kickoff event Wednesday evening and then full days of programs on Thursday and Friday. Adult attendees will meet at the Palmer Train Depot, Turkey Red, Palmer Public Library and the Mat-Su Borough gym.

Kids and teens will meet at Camp Challenge off Engstrom Road. Stoppa said young people are integral to smoking cessation campaigns.

“There’s never been a successful cessation campaign without a strong youth component,” Stoppa said.

Speakers include Dr. Gregory Connolly, who researches and writes about tobacco at the Harvard School of Public Health; Cynthia Hallett, executive director of Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights; Dr. Steven A. Schroeder, director of the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center at the University of California San Francisco; and Luke Witkowski, manager of the FACT Movement, which teaches kids to use facts to fight against corporate tobacco.

If you haven’t heard of Hallett’s organization it’s probably because you haven’t been following the smoke-free workplace movement.

“That organization has really led the charge over the past 30 years for the national smoke-free movement,” Stoppa said.

Witkowski, meanwhile, will spend a lot of time with the youngsters, Stoppa said.

The conference generally draws in 160 or so people from around Alaska, which is probably why Palmer is so happy to have them. Stoppa said the city has been great to work with. The Greater Palmer Chamber of Commerce has distributed signs welcoming conference-goers to the city for merchants to put up in their stores. Mayor DeLena Johnson has read a pro-conference proclamation at a city council meeting.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.