KAYSVILLE -- Even the poster child for cigarettes can kick the smoking habit.
But quitting took former Winston cigarette model Dave Goerlitz some coaxing from his kids, who were in his face every time he sneaked a drag or two.Now, he's getting in the face of kids around the world, using irreverence and humor to convey the dangers of smoking.
"We've taken a product that kills people and confused the most impressionable," the 48-year-old Goerlitz told Mountain High students Tuesday. Goerlitz snapped a 26-year smoking habit 10 years ago because his brother was dying of cancer. Goerlitz was pushing 40 and his two children begged him to stop.
"All I had to do was get 4,000 kids to start smoking," Goerlitz said of tobacco modeling. "Tobacco companies spend $7 billion a year to hook you kids up with this product because they knew you would go through stuff."
That "stuff" is adolescence, a time when kids feel the need to grow up fast and are impressed by images. Tobacco companies' ads depict smokers as athletes or beautiful, vivacious people. The result, Goerlitz says, is that the majority of smokers pick up the habit as teenagers.
Goerlitz, and crusaders like him, have made progress in their cause. Camel cigarettes has stopped using cartoon character Joe Camel in its ads amid accusations it targeted children.
Soon, money from a landmark settlement with big tobacco companies will funnel to 46 states that joined in a class action lawsuit to recoup tobacco-related health-care costs.
Over the next 25 years, Utah stands to recoup $836 million under the settlement. The Legislature this session must agree how to address operations of small cigarette manufacturers not covered under the settlement.
But other than that, Gov. Mike Leavitt has urged studying the state's options, including possibly holding off on other legislative action until next year. That's because Congress may address whether the federal government is entitled to some Medicaid reimbursements under the settlement.
At any rate, Mountain High student Chris Stock says he wants settlement money to go toward prevention programs. Stock, president of his school's anti-tobacco service learning project backed by the state health department, quit smoking last year at age 17. He first smoked in third grade and at 15 ended up with a pack-a-day habit.
But if he had had more information about how to quit and access to programs and the assistance of devices such as nicotine patches or gum, his habit would have been much more short-lived, he said. Now, a kid can't get such patches or gum without a doctor's prescription and parents finding out -- something he'd like to change.
"Not enough is spent on prevention itself," he said. "If I only would have known more . . . "