The 36th Annual Great American Smokeout (Nov. 17, 2011) targeted more than 45-million smokers in the United States and encouraged them to quit.
I must have been about 9 or 10 when I found an unattended cigarette in an ashtray at one of our family dinners. I took it outside, pretended to be glamorous when I smoked that cigarette. After all, advertising gave smoking a certain allure. But I had a sore throat for days afterwards, and I couldn’t tell anyone why.
I soon experienced the dangers first hand when I lost my grandfather to lung cancer and a few months later my grandmother to emphysema.
Today, anti-smoking campaigns continue to intensify--smoking is prohibited in enclosed spaces and now many public areas and on some university campuses.
The European Commission has called for a smoke-free Europe by 2012. And by the fall of 2012, the US will join other nations in mandating that cigarette packages carry graphic warnings about the dangers. If smokers get past the sore throat, will these images serve to deter?
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