Countywide : Activist Strives for Smoke-Free County

Jerry Leavitt admits his goal of making Ventura County tobacco-free by the year 2000 is impossible.

It’s unlikely that every smoker in the county will quit this decade, he said. “But cigarette sales are down 11% to 14% in just the two years since Proposition 99 added a 25-cent-per-pack tax. We’re getting there.”

Leavitt, 63, a retired probation official, is one of several American Lung Assn. of Ventura County employees who carry anti-smoking messages to schools, youth groups and other audiences.

“I’ve lost three good friends to lung cancer,” he said. “I’ve dedicated myself to helping others avoid this fate.”

In speaking to young people, Leavitt pulls no punches. “I tell them tobacco is the nation’s No. 1 killer--that it kills 390,000 Americans a year, more than all other drugs and all traffic accidents combined.”

On the other hand, he tells his audiences that it’s never too late to quit smoking. “The body is a marvelous mechanism that strives to heal itself under any circumstances,” said Leavitt, who quit smoking 10 years ago.

“Even your skin starts looking better when you quit. Smoking prematurely ages the skin, you know.”

Leavitt said he has received dozens of letters from children who thanked him for his talks and pledged never to smoke.

Barbara Weinberg, the county group’s associate director, said Proposition 99, which was approved by voters in 1988, is providing $175,000 to get the anti-smoking message to children, young mothers and minorities.

In addition, the initiative is paying for a statewide stop-smoking television campaign sponsored by the American Lung Assn. of California.

The TV campaign, which begins Monday, is described by Dr. Theodore G. Hostetler, a vice president of the county lung association, as “perhaps the single most important public health event of the decade.”