SmokeLess LGBT DCFact Sheet on Smoking and Tobacco

Tobacco causes 30,000 LGBT deaths in the United States each year.1 That’s far more than are caused by suicide, far more than hate crimes.

We need to take action against tobacco.

Mautner Project invites you to join a renewed coalition, SmokeLess LGBT DC. SmokeLess LGBT DC is a primed and broad-based LGBT- friendly network ranging from individuals and small community groups to large and culturally sensitive medical institutions that serve the LGBT community. Key among our partners are organizations with strong African American participation: Fully 45,000 African American in the U.S. die each year from tobacco related causes.2

The goal of SmokeLess LGBT DC is to build support in our community and among our allies for improved public policies in the District to help people stop smoking, and to help our young people never start.

Through advertising, earned media, and outreach through the community, SmokeLess LGBT DC will educate our community about

how the LGBT community is a particularly target of tobacco advertisers, as is the African American community;

why resisting smoking and the efforts of the tobacco industry to harm us is, directly, an LGBT health and social justice issue; and

what smart and effective measures to protect our community (and the community at large) from tobacco look like.

In the 1990s RJ Reynolds developed a marketing plan for homeless and LGBT people living in San Francisco. They called this “Sub Culture Urban Marketing” or Project SCUM. That’s what they think of us.

We ask our local officials to resist, and to implement evidence-based solutions tested and promoted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). These MAPPS strategies (Media, Access, Point of Purchase, Price, Support and Services) are proven to reduce smoking.

SmokeLess LGBT DC advocates for:

1 http://www.glbthealth.org/documents/GLBTTobacco.pdf2 http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/research/factsheets/pdf/0208.pdf

Media: greater coverage of the targeting of LGBT and African American communities by tobacco companies;Access: more stringent zoning restrictions and usage bans;Point of Purchase: restriction on advertising that can take place in stores at the “point of purchase”; and Price: increased pricing by raising DC taxes on cigarettes and all tobacco products.

And we provide Support for those in our community and our allies who are tyring to stop smoking.

We need your help to protect the LGBT community.

Most LGBT people are fully aware that smoking is bad for them. Still, they smoke. Informing people that smoking is bad for them is simply not enough. Most smokers try to quit 8 times before they succeed.

Smoking is particularly a danger to our youth: LGBT youth smoke at rates 68% higher than any other group; this discrepancy is particularly noticeable among lesbian/ bisexual adolescent girls, who are 9.7 times more likely to smoke than their heterosexual peers.3

The CDC has found that the single most powerful measure to inhibit tobacco use is to raise the price of cigarettes by imposing higher taxes. A 10% increase in cigarette prices creates a 4% drop in adult cigarette consumption.4 The CDC has also found that young people are less likely to start smoking when prices are high, and when tobacco advertising is banned at the “point of purchase.” DC officials need to hear from us that we support such measures.

MAPPS also documents the importance of social services and support; that’s why we run culturally sensitive smoking cessation groups for LGBT people and allies as well as promote the DC Quitline. We need your help to get the word out that these services are available right here in our community.

Just as our community resists homophobic statements, and works to expand various legal rights, so too must we be aware of how the marketing of tobacco products to the LGBT (along with African American and youth) community is, in effect, a killer.

Join Mautner Project and Smokeless LGBT DC in our fight to bring awareness to the dangers of smoking, its related health issues, and the costs of the tobacco related health diseases. Help us end smoking in the nation’s capital.

To become an organizational member of SmokeLess LGBT DC or to sign on as an individual, please contact Riana Buford at RBuford@mautnerproject.org or at 202.335.5536.

3 http://www.lungusa.org/assets/documents/publications/lung-disease-data/lgbt-report.pdf4 (Thomas R. Frieden, Director, CDC, “Core Interventions to Make Communities Healthier,” CPPW Grantee Orientation; and Task Force on Community Preventive Services. Tobacco. In ZazaS, Briss PA, Harris KW, eds. The Guide to Community Preventive Services: What Works to Promote Health? Atlants: Oxford University Press; 2005;3-79)