Powerful presentation Lorene Sandifur spoke to a group of Carroll County community leaders to engage them in the fight against smoking. She educated audience members about the prevalent aggressive advertising by tobacco companies directed toward young girls. Comet photo by Debbie Lowe Lorene Sandifur lost her husband Gary to cancer resulting from smoking until he turned 50 years old. She said Gary told her he would quit smoking by the time he was 50 and he did, but he did so because he was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer the day before his birthday. The cancer metastasized from his lungs after decades of smoking cigarettes.

Since the death of her husband, Sandifur has become a popular spokesperson against the tobacco industry. She spoke to a group of Carroll County leaders May 14 at the Canal Interpretive Center. The event was sponsored by the Indiana State Department of Health and hosted by the Carroll County Health Department.

"When a 50-year-old smoker dies, big tobacco knows that smoker will be replaced by a kid," she told the audience. "Not by another 50-year-old."

She said it has become much more common for teens to start smoking. Because of that fact, advertisers target that population to sell their product.

"Clearly, tobacco marketing is done for young girls," she said.

She said that although women have been targeted since the 1930s with images of strong vibrant women on the cover of cigarette packs, like Lucky Strikes, she cited brands such as Virginia Slims, Misty and the more recent Camel packages as alluring to girls and women. They use colors associated with young females (hot pink) and images of strong vibrant women to pitch their products.

Sandifur presented information that stated that tobacco was the leading cause of preventable deaths in Indiana. It kills more than 9,700 Hoosiers each year. Of those who die prematurely, 3,800 are women. She reported that 23 percent of high school girls are current smokers. In addition, tobacco use by women results in $750.6 million in direct health care costs for Indiana every year. She said there are no governmental regulations for ingredients used in cigarettes and ingredients are not listed on packaging.

According to written information provided from the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, tobacco companies conduct extensive market research on the attitudes of women and girls to better understand how to target their products and their advertising. By focusing research on how females view themselves, cigarette companies have developed "some of the most aggressive and sophisticated marketing campaigns in history for reaching and influencing women and girls."

The state department of health issued a nine-point action plan to help community leaders address the issue. The brochure states the first thing to do is to encourage family, friends and colleagues to quit smoking, which now costs more due to a cigarette tax increase imposed July 1, 2007.

Tools to combat the trend of young women smoking can be found at and

Further information can be obtained from the Carroll County Health Department which provides a weekly smoking cessation class funded by the State of Indiana.