July 28, 2000
SEAN McKIBBON
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT — An Australian anti-smoking commercial is perhaps one of the most disturbing images ever seen on television — and it may be coming soon to Nunavut.
In the commercial, a person squeezes out the contents of a human aorta (heart artery) that once belonged to a smoker.
The substance that oozes out of the tube of human flesh looks like butter — the result of plaques that build up when a person smokes. To top it all off, the aorta comes from a man who died in his thirties.
As disgusting as it sounds — and it is even more grotesque to watch– British Columbia’s health minister, Mike Farmworth, says the advertisement is one of the most effective tools in his government’s war on smoking.
"A lot of adults think that humorous adds are the most effective way to approach the issue, but they aren’t. What we’ve found is that among young people, it’s the really gross ads that work," he said.
Farmworth was in Nunavut with some of his advisors this week to see Nunavut’s health care system first hand and to assist the territory in developing it’s own smoking cessation campaign.
The campaign in B.C. uses ads, posters, a teen mentoring program, and a seven-member council of young people who advise the government on what works and what doesn’t.
The program has been so successful, boasts Farmworth, that in one B.C. high school, smoking among students has dropped from 28 per cent to 7 per cent. In Nunavut 70 per cent of teenagers smoke, said Nunavut’s health minister, Ed Picco.
"There’s a lot of peer pressure," Farmworth said. "So we’re trying to make it cool not to smoke."
The program has cost B.C. $6.5 million to implement, about double what Nunavut has to spend on its own anti-smoking campaign, but the territory’s health minister, Ed Picco, said that by trying to adapt the B.C. campaign to Nunavut, some money could be saved and his department would not have to "re-invent the wheel."
"Ours is a multi-year strategy," said Picco. "If we start the program now, maybe in three years we’ll be where B.C. is today."
Picco said that he wants to try to identify effective anti-smoking programs and implement them on a Nunavut-wide basis. He said that another anti-smoking campaign called "Breathing Easier," designed by Pauktuutit for Grade 4 and 5 students, was also very effective and he would like to see it introduced across the territory.
"Big tobacco companies have changed their campaigns over the last few years to target young people," Farmworth said.
He said the B.C. strategy has been to use programs that educate young people about the dangers of smoking, and to put in place legislation that allows the government to sue tobacco companies to recover health care costs.
In B.C., some young people even participate in sting operations where store owners are asked to sell cigarettes to minors. If they sell, they get charged, said Farmworth.
"At this early stage, it’s probably the most difficult part of it because we have to figure out the financial aspects," said Picco.
He said he hopes that by October, an educational package would be ready to go into schools across Nunavut.
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