Up to Snuff : Ad Campaign Tries to Scare Smokers Into Kicking the Habit

The new ads appearing at bus stops and malls throughout the county are attention-getting, if not shocking.

One says, “There’s a Killer Loose in Orange County.” Another ad warns: “Don’t Be a Victim.”

They’re not part of a right-wing, law-and-order political campaign. They represent the kickoff of a unique advertising crusade, sponsored by the Orange County Health Care Agency, which drives home the message that smoking kills.

“The ads are really hard-hitting, and we wanted them that way because that’s how the tobacco industry advertises,” said Marilyn Cowan, director of the county’s Tobacco Use Prevention Program. “The tobacco industry advertises that smoking is glamorous. We want people to think about the dangers. It’s an important health issue because about 3,000 people a year in Orange County die (from smoking-related ailments).”

The campaign, the first to be generated by and targeted to Orange County, will extend through December. The cost is $75,000--a bargain for so many months and so much advertising space, Cowan said. “We’re getting discount rates because we’re a nonprofit agency,” she said.

Funding comes from Proposition 99, a state initiative passed in 1988 which increased the cigarette tax 25 cents and dedicated part of the money to health research and anti-smoking education.

One big booster of the anti-smoking drive is a Santa Ana dentist, Dr. W. James Nethery, who headed the statewide campaign for Proposition 99. Nethery is now co-chairman of an Orange County coalition of civic groups and health agencies that oppose smoking.

“It’s consistent with the intent of the initiative (Proposition 99),” Nethery said of the ad program.

Nethery said the new campaign comes at a time of increasing severe budget deficits that led Gov. Pete Wilson earlier this year to propose a diversion of some of the anti-smoking money to other health purposes.

“Education is the part of Proposition 99 that the tobacco industry fears the most,” said Nethery. “The tobacco industry knows that education to stop people from smoking, especially young people, is going to hurt their market.”

Nethery, 56, is a dental oncologist--a dentist who reconstructs mouths, jaws and palates of patients ravaged by surgery and radiation treatment to control cancer.

“I take care of patients with head and neck cancer,” he said. “I see the results of smoking every day.” Those results inspired him to spearhead the drive to tax tobacco more heavily in California and to use the money to fight smoking, which succeeded despite heavily financed opposition by the tobacco lobby.

Nethery praised the campaign, in part because it targets young people.

Cowan cited one ad in particular, which reads: “Smoking--Cool? Smelly Clothes. Yellow Teeth. Bad Breath. Wrinkles. Cancer. Death . . . NOT.”

“Young people don’t think about cancer and death,” said Cowan, who is a health-education specialist. “But they do think a lot about personal appearance.”

Focusing on young people is especially important, said Teresa Riss, assistant director of marketing for the Orange County unit of the American Cancer Society.

“Studies show the young people start smoking between the ages of 11 and 15, and that while they may just start because of peer influence, they become addicted and keep on smoking,” she said. “So we think it’s very good to try to prevent smoking before it becomes addictive.”