boomsbeat.com
DES MOINES – A series of television ads launched nationwide Sunday night depicting celebrities pictured smoking cigarettes as “unpaid tobacco” spokespeople, is part of an aggressive nationwide campaign launched by a national organization that aims to curb youth and adult tobacco use.
The ads, which aired on Sunday night’s MTV’s Video Music Awards, include celebrities Rihanna, Lady Gaga and Chris Brown, among others.
The non-profit Legacy, whose Board of Directors includes Attorney General Tom Miller, bought the ads as part of a renewed national youth smoking prevention campaign called “truth.”
“With social media, teens and young adults from here in Iowa have the potential to influence others just as much as a Hollywood celebrity,” Miller said. “This bold and edgy campaign tries to harness their creativity and power to help us end smoking for good.”
The television, website and social media campaign targets 15-21-year-olds.
“We want to remind everyone – not just celebrities – that ending the tobacco epidemic and saving nearly half a million American lives annually is not only possible, but it’s likely if this movement succeeds,” Miller added.
Survey: Youth Smoking Declining
Last year, Monitoring the Future, an ongoing nationwide study of the behaviors, attitudes, and values of secondary school students, college students, and young adults, reported in its annual survey that youth smoking rates across the country have dropped below ten percent, the lowest levels in more than two decades.
According to the Iowa Department of Public Health’s Division of Tobacco Use Prevention and Control, the 2012 Iowa Youth Survey found that 12 percent of Iowa’s 11th graders reported using cigarettes.
“We think youth tobacco usage in Iowa and nationally is moving in the right direction, but we’d like to see the numbers go even lower,” Miller said. “We’d like to see the day when teens and adults reject tobacco use altogether.”
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Just think, in two years, (I think that what it is) the small pot growers in Colorado, etc. will be put out of business, Why, because the big tobacco companies are poised to jump on manufacturing marijuana cigarettes so they can have a monopoly on marijuana too. To me that’s a shame, it should be never, or 20 years at the least. I do not smoke, but between killer tobacco and marijuana, casual use of marijuana is the least harmful. I just don’t like big tobacco companies being able to do this..
@Allen-As they do more and more study’s on Pot they are finding out it is just as bad when you smaoke it as tobacco. As a matter of fact I read a reaport that said the tar from pot is worse than tobacco and we already know that pot smoking dumbs down young people’s intelligence. As if there wasn’t enough brain dead people already. The insurance lobby will be after pot real shortly. You just watch and see.
I agree, but a lot of cannabis smokers also smoke cigarettes, so they’re not concerned about the smoke. As a non-smoker, if cannabis is ever legalized in Iowa I will vaporize or cook with it. (I’m a pretty good cook. 🙂
@JMO-as a pain reliever or for medical use I don’t really have a problem with it. For recreational use I do. As I said, there are enough brain dead people running around already with out legalizing something to create more. Besides, I am will to bet the health insurance company’s are going to come out against it real fast.
They think tobacco usage is moving in the right direction. Bull Crap. They obviously do not have a clue what is really happening in this part of town. It just makes me sick to see all the young people walking and driving by with a damn cigarette in their mouths. All of the money that has been spent ad all the education has not stopped the use of tobacco. If it is as bad as claimed (I believe it is) outlaw the damn crap. They won’t do that because of all the taxes they collect.
Prohibition doesn’t work. It didn’t work with alcohol, it doesn’t work with drugs today. People are going to use drugs like alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, cocaine, heroin, etc, etc, etc regardless of whether they are legal or not. We can only continue to educate on the risks. By legalizing drugs, you don’t solve the drug problem, you remove the criminal element. And I’m not talking about someone who is smoking a joint is a “criminal”, I”m talking about the drug cartels that kill to…
@Left-doesn’t it seem strange that something as bad for you as tobacco which has proven to be poison is still allowed by the government, but yet they continue to spend millios of dollars on so called education that no one pays a bit of attention to other than the people who already do not smoke. It is one of those feel good programs that just subsidize someone’s income at taxpayer expense. Stop the foolishness.
I agree completely. You can only educate so much, people are still going to choose to do what they’re going to do. That was my point with prohibition in general. It doesn’t work, so let’s stop wasting tax payer money on preventing drug use when it doesn’t work.
What is the cost of the ads? That’s what should be open and transparent, since it’s safe to assume Tom Miller didn’t write out a personal check. It’s also interesting to understand the budget and check writing power Tom Miller has for these types of things. Gotta love America huh? The merging of government with pop icon culture…(sigh)
We tried to tell you Matt, that shaming people with photos should work. Others are doing it.