M.O.M.

I really liked Thank You For Smoking. One of my professional hats is Tobacco Prevention Specialist, so of course I appreciated my piece of the public health pie being up on the screen.

A couple of days after the movie I was helping out the Dept of Health at a community open house the UW was having. The booth I was manning consisted of a pamphlet-covered table, a tri-fold backdrop listing the dept's accomplishments, and a TV set up about 5 feet away (by the outlet).

The TV had to be on mute to not disturb the other booth-minders. Nevertheless it was looping silently through all the youth-directed anti-smoking commericials the state had put out in the last few years. heavily featured in the loop were the newer commericals that feature the tag line "Kissing a smoker is just as gross." In different variations, a little clay-ma girl plunges her face into a rotting squirrel before making out and a boy laps cat vomit off the carpet before putting on his kissy face. Watching this over and over and over again I got to wondering, What is it like to have a job where your big project is putting together the specs on clay-mation cat vomit.

The other booths in the room with me had things to give away to the kids that would wander in with their families every 15 minutes or so. It was dumping rain outside, which was probably the only reason families were spending their Saturday afternoons in the health sciences complex. Or maybe they had wandered in accidentally and couldn't figure how to get out (it took two quarters to figure out that the library didnt' vanish and move everytime I left it). The other booths were a nursing training outfit and something else that was boring enough to drop out of my memory. But kids were stopping at both of these booths because they had things to give away.

I like kids and I wanted to be able to talk to some of them too, especially since my volunteer time was not going to get pulled over for unsafe speeds anytime soon. Thus I was overjoyed when I discovered two boxes of health fair party favors under the pamphlet table. One was full of rulers and the other was full of book marks.

While the ruler had obvious utility for all ages -- it could measure things, it was hefty enough to not dissolve in the rain the instant a kid left the building, it was the bookmarks that drew the (minimal) crowds. I think it was the color printing. The bookmarks featured a strip of pictures like you would get at a photobooth at the mall. The strip had head shots of two teenagers and a third frame that was filled with smokey grayness. This was a representation of the tagline that came before "Kissing a smoker is just as gross," which was, 'One in three (kids who start smoking will die prematurely)" It is much catchier if you leave off the second part, and the branding got the point where I think you could do that (then again, I was on the inside looking in). The nice thing about being the state is that it is pretty easy to get billboard space. The billboards for the "One and three" campaign had included one with two girls sunning themselves brightly on the beach while a sculpted white coffin with with silver detailing rested on the third towel. I found this to be a little off message, since it seemed to say "If you start smoking as a kid you will be well-tanned and really hot in a few years -- even if you die you will have a bitchin' coffin." Personally, I think too many kids have Tom Sawyer fantasies for that image and the others in the campaign to really work. The Kissing a smoker thing is mm, ok - but how many of the kids who like clay-mation are making out. All making out was really gross to me when I dug clay-mation, so they wouldn't have had a lot of ressonance with me. I hear the next tagline is going to be "No Stank You;" use your imagination. but I digress.

So I am at the health fair with the rulers and the bookmarks and the kids are coming up and I am talking to them about the commercials on the silent TV. We would turn a couple of corners in a media literacy conversation ("What does it mean that there are three kids in the sinking boat and only two life jackets?"), parents would get antsy to go, and then I would offer them stuff. Kind of like halloween with paper goods and a social message. Fine for older kids. Not so fine for younger ones.

A family with two kids, maybe 6 and 8 came up. "That cat on the TV is puking!" they ebulliently reported to everyone in the room, and then, "Oh, bookmarks!" They eached grabbed three. What is on the bookmark, one of them asked, Pictures I said. Why? They are pictures of teenagers who started smoking. What's the other picture of? Well (look to make eye contact wtih parent, get nothing), that's the dead person. What do you mean? I mean, have a ruler, have a bunch of happy yellow rulers that never ever die.

My volunteer time expended, I started thinking about how while alcohol, tobacco, and firearms my be the Merchants of Death, public health, and especially tobacco, is the Merchant of the Morbid. Handing out bookmarks with pictures of dead kids? What is that about?

And so I developed a philosophy. I think prevention education should start at an early early age in the form of learning to be assertive and to understand messages. I don't think it should be about how kissing a smoker is just as gross. The only people who are talking to five years olds about tobacco are the anti-tobacco people. It's a little premature. Teach kids how to watch, analyze, and make decisions. And then when they are old enough to recognize that the person on the bookmark is dead, give them a bookmark. But hopefully at that point they will have some independent critical thinking going on that helps them say "No stank you" because that's a decision they have made.