[Intl-tobacco] Europe launches anti-tobacco campaign

[Robert Weissman]

http://www.eureporter.co.uk/articles/article.cfm?id=1358

Europe launches anti-tobacco campaign
Written by Pelle Neroth
Wednesday March 10, 2004

A European-wide campaign named "Feel free to say no" to combat smoking
is to be launched this week in mind of the fact that 37% of young
Europeans are regular puffers.

The roadshow featuring a 17-metre campaign truck containing a live stage
which will be used for games, competitions, karaoke and quiz shows and
for live acts by pop bands - all with underlying anti-smoking themes -
will be touring Europe's cities this summer starting with London on 10
March, followed by cities such as Amsterdam, Brussel, Lille and others.

Funded by the Commission, the campaign will also feature antismoking
adverts in nearly 50 youth magazines from April on and new television
adverts will hit the screens on World No Smoking Day on 31 May, to be
seen on the pan-European television channels MTV and Eurosport.

Health and Consumer Protection Commissioner David Byrne said: "It is
well-known that eight out of ten people who smoke start when they are
between 12 and 18 years old. Once they are hooked by the nicotine, these
people no longer have a real choice. That's why we want young people to
feel free to say no to tobacco while they still have the choice."

The campaign follows a similar one last summer and is part of the EU's
strategy to reduce smoking among the young, which included a
pan-European ban on tobacco advertising which has to be implemented by
July 2005.

Health experts estimate that every second adolescent smoker will
eventually die from the negative effects of smoking. Every year, 500,000
people in the European Union die prematurely from smoking-related diseases.