Tobacco company sponsors teen cessation conference

A few weeks ago I listened to a webinar about reducing teen smoking rates. I knew it was sponsored by Altria (formerly known as Phillip Morris, AKA Marlboro land). It wasn't so much what was said but what was NOT said. There was no disclosure for this webinar that Altria was paying for it and I bet that if it had been disclosed, many of the call participants would have hung up.

Next, I started

The best way to quit smoking is to never start

For the past seven years I have been visiting Mrs. Smith's health education classes at Coachella Valley High School as a guest speaker. It's one of the most important talks I do and one of the most rewarding. Mrs. Smith handed me an envelope full of letters from students that attended my last talk. Each thanked me for for talking to them and listed what they learned that was most important to

We Don't Want Our Kids to Smoke

Mary's father started her smoking at 16 because he thought it made her look sophisticated, now at 70, she finds it almost impossible to quit. We've come a long way baby, from an attitude like Mary's father yet even today when a teenager is caught with cigarettes, that parent breathes a sign of relief that it wasn't something stronger, "It's just cigarettes, a right of a passage instead of drugs"

Parental Influence on Adolescent Smoking

Condensed version: Most smokers start as a teenagers and if they become addicted, they become lifelong smokers and have a high risk of dying from smoking. The teen doesn't become addicted with the first cigarette but follows a path that can lead to addiction. The first step is thinking about trying a cigarette, then experimentation, a cigarette every now and then, which progresses to a regular