Pictured From left: Speaker Scout, LCCP Executive Director Jessica Halem, and activist Renae Ogletree. Photos by Andrew Davis
Sobering statistics and personal reflections were the order of the day at 'Queer the Air,' a day-long anti-tobacco summit that took place May 23 at Howard Brown Health Center, 4025 N. Sheridan. The event was hosted by the Lesbian Community Cancer Project ( LCCP ) .
Among the goals of the event was to have attendees learn about the national LGBT anti-tobacco movement and to strategize how to spread the word. Another aim was to create a coalition effort ( among local and national organizations ) to support smoke-free gay bars before the final implementation of Chicago's anti-smoking ordinance takes effect in 2008.
The summit certainly took on a personal feel as several people talked about their own struggles to quit smoking—and few stories would seem as compelling as Renae Ogletree's, as the community leader discussed wanting to light up even after being diagnosed with cancer, undergoing chemotherapy and having part of one lung removed. 'To me, [ smoking ] didn't seem like an addiction at first,' said Ogletree, who was originally given a prognosis of three to six months to live ( several years ago ) . 'It was just something you did socially. You had it with beer or coffee. No one could convince me that I couldn't just stop if I wanted to. But if you're still smoking after three months of chemotherapy, you've got issues.' Ogletree also acknowledged that she had an extensive support network that got her through. 'If you want to find out who your true friends are, get a diagnosis of death,' she said to peals of laughter from the audience. ( Out of respect for her, she said, her friends do not smoke if she's around. )
She said that, like all addicts, she still has a problem and occasionally craves cigarettes. 'People say it gets easier, but it got a little harder [ to not smoke ] .' Even though she had difficulty breathing around cigarette smoke, she became what she termed a 'closet smoker.' Ogletree extolled the virtues of the medicine Wellbutrin but said that the nicotine patch did not work.
However, Ogletree—never one to shy away from telling the truth—conceded that, in the process, she suffered another addiction. 'I was on a lot of medication because I was in that small percentage of [ post-operative ] people in which the pain doesn't go away,' she stated. 'I was hooked on Vicodin, which I took with morphine because that's how bad the pain was. I was pretty much hooked on drugs until last year.' She then added that she developed a blood infection and almost died again last year, 'and [ guess ] what I wanted? So this has been a journey for me.'
Scout, director of the National LGBT Tobacco Control Network, talked about the history of the LGBT anti-tobacco movement—but started off with a couple of stunning facts. 'The only thing the average smoker does more than [ light up ] is blink.' Also, he revealed the results of a recent California study that showed that the average gay man smokes 50 percent more than the general population—and that the average lesbian smokes 200 percent more than the overall public. 'We're winning all the wrong kinds of awards, and we don't understand that we're being targeted,' Scout stated. He also showed results of focus groups that showed that African Americans were irate to learn that they were being targeted—but that the gay community was actually grateful. 'Our gratefulness kills us,' he said. Scout also talked about marketing projects such as Project SCUM ( Subculture Urban Marketing ) , with the subcultures being the LGBT and homeless communities. 'It's ever so helpful to crystallize exactly where [ marketing companies ] hold us in their esteem,' he stated.
One interesting aspect of the anti-tobacco movement involved the Proposition 10 ballot initiative in California ( involving the boost of cigarette tax by 50 cents to provide funding for healthcare and childcare programs ) and the movement against it by large tobacco companies, who knew that higher prices meant fewer smokers, Scout declared. The anti-proposition agenda involved recruiting David Mixner, an LGBT community leader, and targeting gay and lesbian outlets ranging from civil-rights groups to the media. ( It was all for naught, though; the proposition passed—barely—in 1998 and became effective on Jan. 1, 1999. )
Scout mentioned several initiatives that people and groups can take to promote smoking cessation in the LGBT community. Among those are working with tobacco control groups, promoting awareness and building support for cessation. To fit in nationally, he said, it's important to do everything from documenting lessons that have been learned to creating new strategies that others can use.
Blase Masini, director of research at Howard Brown, presented his results concerning the Queer Tobacco Elimination and Control Collaboration ( Q-TECC ) . The seven-week 'Call It Quits' project—which involved agencies such as CALOR and the now-defunct TransGenesis—involved a program from the American Lung Association as well as one from QueerTIPS, a smoking cessation project targeted towards the LGBT community.
Quit rates were then evaluated along several demographic factors, including income, gender and even HIV status. ( Eighty two percent of the participants identified themselves as gay, lesbian or bisexual. ) One of the most intriguing results showed that 51 percent of the HIV-negative participants had stopped smoking immediately after the focus group project—and that same number had not resumed smoking three months later. However, with HIV-positive individuals, the percentage dropped from 75 to 41 percent after three months.
Productive brainstorming sessions also took place at the summit, with participants talking about everything from the connection between lack of healthcare and increased smoking to making smoking cessation a social justice issue.
Others who talked included Frieda Glantz, project manager of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights; Antonio Cardona, program director of the Rainbow Health Initiative; and Kitty Jerome, a program consultant with The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
To learn more about local smoking cessation programs, contact Lisa Tonna of the LCCP at 773-388-8682 or lisa@lccp.org .
