Center Hosts Kick Butts Event, What are YOU smoking?

The Staten Island LGBT Community Center held its Kick Butts Day event, What are YOU Smoking? on Thursday, March 22, 2012, although the official Kick Butts Day was Wednesday, March 21^st. Erica Santiago, the LGBT Health Educator, and Barbara P. Sullivan, Manager of Information, Referral & Special Projects, worked together to plan an event that would be interactive and fun. Barbara baked Devil’s food mini-cupcakes and iced them with vanilla icing and rainbow sprinkles. (See photo.) Erica found a video clip on what’s in a cigarette (everything from rat poison to hair remover to hydrogen cyanide to nail polish remover), and we played it and talked about the different substances found in cigarettes and/or cigarette smoke. Erica also found some tobacco trivia questions that we asked participants to answer; a correct answer earned them their choice of prizes from a batch of give-aways courtesy of the Staten Island Smoke-Free Partnership. For example:

How many years of life does the average cigarette smoker lose?

Would you be surprised to learn that it’s 13 to 15 years?

What is the average age that kids try their first cigarette?

Did you guess 12 years old? That’s the answer.

How much money do tobacco companies spend on advertising in a year?

It’s $15 billion!

Smoking a cigar is equivalent to smoking how many cigarettes?

The answer is 10. Each cigar equals 10 cigarettes.

During and after the trivia game, the young people learned about the U.S. Surgeon General’s report on preventing tobacco use in youth and young adults, and the way tobacco companies target youth with point-of-sale advertising, placement in films and videos, colorful packaging and flavorful additions to cigarettes, cigars and smokeless tobacco products – all aimed at turning them into replacement smokers for the one in three smokers who die from smoking. On Staten Island, they learned, there are 46,000 smokers – 2,000 of them high school students. We have the highest smoking rates of all the boroughs – and the rates among our LGBT population are even higher!

To learn more about these issues, contact Barbara at 718.808.1364 or barbara.sullivan@chasiny.org. She can help you to quit if you’re a smoker. But it’s better if you never even start!

LGBT Health Expo is Saturday, March 31st!

Stop Smoking Forum held at Staten Island LGBT Community Center, offers tips for quitting

Smoking disproportionately impacts the LGBT community and puts individuals at greater risk of tobacco-related health problems such as heart disease, lung cancer, esophageal and breast cancer, emphysema and asthma. Tobacco companies target our community through ads in LGBT publications and sponsorship of high-profile events like Gay Pride celebrations. Gay and lesbian youth are especially targeted as “replacements” for adult smokers who have quit or died. That’s why the Staten Island LGBT Community Center held a Freedom from Smoking forum on Thursday, February 16, 2012.

Many thanks to State Assemblyman Matt Titone and Chris Bauer, his Chief of Staff, for taking the time to share their quit-smoking stories at the forum. Chris, who trains to play water polo and has traveled around the world for the Gay Games, has been smoke-free for about three years. He quit “cold turkey” and admits to occasional relapses. Matt quit more recently using Nicotine Replacement Therapy patches. Among the tips he shared were:

• Dieting to lose a few pounds before trying to quit (to prepare for possible weight gain upon quitting);

• Using the electronic cigarette as a way to satisfy the “hand-to-mouth” habit without actually smoking a cigarette.

Both men noted the social aspect of smoking and the element of peer pressure that exists, even among adults.

The forum also provided information about policy issues being worked on by the Staten Island Smoke-Free Partnership and their community partners, including Community Health Action of Staten Island.

• Lessening the negative effects of secondhand smoke by increasing smoke-free outdoor spaces.

You don’t have to smoke to suffer harm from smoking. There is no safe level of secondhand smoke, and it can do harm to infants and children as well as adults. Last May a ban on smoking in public parks and beaches went into effect in New York City. Efforts are now underway to encourage local businesses and organizations to adopt policies for smoke-free spaces outside their locations.

• Reduction of advertising that targets young people at convenience stores, delis, pharmacies and other businesses.

Assemblyman Titone is sponsoring a bill (also sponsored by Senator Andrew Lanza in the State Senate) to ban the sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products in pharmacies across New York State. Pharmacies are supposed to be purveyors of health and wellness, and they are a trusted source of information and advice about health and medical matters. They should not be in the business of selling products that cause or exacerbate illness.

If you missed the Freedom from Smoking forum and would like help to quit smoking, contact Barbara at 718.808.1364 during business hours for a counseling session and, if eligible, free Nicotine Replacement Therapy patches and/or gum. If you’re interested in getting involved in anti-smoking advocacy efforts, Barbara can help you with that as well.

World AIDS Day at Arthur Kill Correctional Facility 2009