March 26 - Students the New Face of Anti-Tobacco Activism Edmonton Journal article

Thursday, March 25, 2004
Page: B4
Section: CityPlus
Edition: Final
Dateline: EDMONTON
Byline: Bill Mah

EDMONTON - It was one event for young people that a tobacco company may regret sponsoring.

When dutch master cigars brought Canadian rocker David Usher to the University of Lethbridge in September, the ensuing fracas launched the careers of two young smoking opponents.

First-year political science majors Philip Ney and Jamie Huckabay take credit, and obvious delight, in toppling a tobacco-friendly students' union, organizing a well-funded, anti-smoking lobby group and raising the hackles of tobacco executives.

"I love stirring the pot and seeing what bubbles to the surface," said Huckabay, 18.

The two, along with others attending a conference for college and university students at Edmonton's Coast Plaza Hotel on Wednesday, are the new faces of anti-tobacco activism popping up at campuses around the country.

The conference was hosted by AADAC, the Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission and attracted up to 100 interested students.

One of the targets of their activism is the often-lucrative partnerships between student governments and tobacco companies.

"The problem with it is that this is dirty money.

"It's blood money and people have died because they're addicted to a substance," Huckabay said.

They describe their work as a backlash to the targeting of their peers by cigarette companies. But they face a tough battle.

While overall smoking is down in Alberta, the smoking rate among people aged 20-24 has jumped to 36 per cent, after dropping last year to 27 per cent, federal statistics show.

Federal law restricts tobacco products and sales, and bans cigarette companies from advertising and promoting their sponsorship of cultural and sporting events. But smoking opponents charge that companies have gone underground to clubs and campuses with their marketing.

Huckabay and Ney said that's what Benson and Hedges was doing when the company signed an agreement with the U of L's students' union permitting it to sponsor events such as the David Usher concert.

Huckabay and Ney said the show, with its sexy cigarette vendors and flashy advertising, was a blatant attempt to woo young customers.

"Philip came to me the next day and said, 'Let's get some political activism going,' " Huckabay said.

They logged onto the website for AADAC, looking for posters they could put up. Instead, they discovered the provincial agency was about to visit the campus. They ended up with a $38,000 grant and started the group Students for Tobacco Reduction.

They say a poster and media campaign by the group helped defeat the student politicians that partnered with the cigarette maker. Now they're promoting tobacco-free concerts to show that fun doesn't have to involve cigarettes.

Larisa Hausmanis, of Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada, is helping prepare a nationwide survey of college and university tobacco policies.

She found that tobacco-free policies aren't a priority on many campuses.

"What we're noticing is that change will most likely happen through student-motivated movement," she said.

She's noticed bars catering to young people are increasingly festooned with smoking paraphernalia and is worried about the link between a night of fun and tobacco.

AADAC's studies show that even among people who avoid regular smoking, occasional or social smoking is seen as "normal."

"It hurts me to think that as an age group, we're so blind to the kind of direct marketing that's happening here," Hausmanis said.

"We go out there and we campaign against Nike sweatshops and Gap clothes, and yet we're not taking a stand against tobacco and they're marketing directly towards us."