Countywide : Smokeout Persuades Some to Call It Quits

Leonard Perkins pulled a rumpled pack of Kool menthols from his shirt, plopped it on a table at John Wayne Airport and won a round of applause.

“That’s the last of my cigarettes,” Perkins of Fountain Valley declared Thursday, to the delight of the American Cancer Society representatives. “I’ve been carrying around that pack all week as I started cutting down. But now it’s over.”

In this, the 14th year of the Great American Smokeout, Perkins’ reaction was just what the American Cancer Society had in mind, said spokesman Tom McPherson. At schools, businesses and malls all over the country, smokers were being asked to quit, at least for a day.

“We’re asking people to stop and think about their health,” said McPherson, who helped at a “survival station” inside the airport terminal. “The idea is that if you stop for 24 hours you may quit for life.”

Not everyone was buying it. Outside the terminal, John Harshall, who had just arrived with his wife, Bruna, from Cleveland to visit their daughter in San Clemente, declared himself a happy and determined smoker for “55 years.” Harshall said he had no intention of quitting or of opting for a low-tar alternative, or even a cigarette with a filter.

“I smoke Camels, the only brand I’ve ever smoked,” Harshall said.

While the message of the day was serious, the Smokeout festivities were meant to be fun, McPherson said. In that spirit, two Cal State Fullerton students dressed as a tomato and carrot--suggested alternatives to cigarettes--wandered throughout the terminal handing out balloons and buttons.

“We wanted to keep things lighthearted, because most people tell us they want to stop smoking but they cannot,” McPherson said. “It’s an addiction, and we understand that.”

Fifth District Supervisor Thomas F. Riley, a former three-pack-a-day Camel smoker who quit 15 years ago, helped man the station at John Wayne Airport. Quitting smoking saved his life, he said.

“I had an asthma attack at a speaking engagement five years after I quit,” Riley said. “I couldn’t breathe at all. I survived that attack, but I sincerely believe if I had not quit smoking I would not be here today.”

But outside the doorways of the airport terminal (smoking is not allowed inside), several people took last puffs and ignored the Smokeout station.

“I’m trying to cut down; this is only my second cigarette of the day,” said Brenda Porter of Huntington Beach. “I’m (cutting down) because my daughter brought home an ‘adopt a smoker’ button from school. But basically I think it’s a decision everyone should make on their own.”

The American Cancer Society estimates 500,000 people smoke in Orange County.

On Thursday, more than 300 businesses in the county participated in the Great American Smokeout, according to the society, by holding contests and encouraging employees to quit for the day, McPherson said.

School districts also took part. At Edison High School in Huntington Beach, 1,700 students signed a banner pledging not to smoke, said Roxanne Garza, the society’s director of public education.

At the UC Irvine student center, three tables were dedicated to anti-smoking brochures and paraphernalia, including books of headless matches and two-finger rings bearing the inscription “I left the pack behind.”

But the most dramatic argument against smoking may have been displayed at the UCI Medical Center’s Clinical Cancer Center table. There, encased in glass, was the lung of a dead smoker.

Its splotchy black, bubbly surface made a believer of Vinnie Kwon, a junior biology major and, until Thursday, a smoker.

After peering into the case he thrust his arms skyward and said “I quit.”