>>BILL BROWNING: I started smoking really
young, I’ve been a smoker since I was 14-years-old
and I’m 40 now.
I come from a really small town, but once
I went to college well, there were other gay
people there and they all smoked.
By the time I was smart enough to realize
what was going on, well I was already addicted.
It’s even damaged the relationship between
my non-smoking partner and I.
>>DR.
SCOUT: In America right now, 1 in 5 people
are smoking.
In the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender
communities we have smoking rates that are
almost 70 percent higher than the general
population.
And why such extremely high smoking rates?
In the LGBT communities the stigma that we
experience can nudge anybody towards unhealthy
behaviors.
>>AMARI PEARSON-FIELDS: Coming out and not
knowing what my life was going to be like,
you know I smoked a pack of cigarettes every
day.
>>BILL BROWNING: It’s easy to fall into
the trap of smoking.
So many LGBT people are already so stressed
out about coming out or just living their
daily lives.
>>DR.
SCOUT: You experience the isolation from your
family, from school members.
You’re looking for social acceptance.
>>AMARI PEARSON-FIELDS: Add to that the additional
stressors of being discriminated against or
having your rights denied because of who you
are and who you love.
>>BILL BROWNING and I think that’s whats
been capitalized off of.
You’re not normal, here have a way to relieve
that stress.
>>DR.
SCOUT: We’re targeted by the Tobacco industry
because we are a very easy population to sell
to and we pay them back in decades and decades
and decades of handsome profits to their bottom
line.
>>AMARI PEARSON-FIELDS: Because it looks like
they care about us, because they’re sponsoring
our events and they’re running ads in our
magazines, and it’s a lot.
>>DR.
SCOUT: Smoking is everywhere.
It’s part of the fabric of our communities.
It’s also the number one preventable health
problem that we can steer clear of.
>>AMARI PEARSON-FIELDS: We all have a role
to play in being activated for health justice.
>>DR.
SCOUT: And it’s gonna take a lot of work,
at a lot of different levels.
First step is we need to help the LGBT communities
realize we have this huge smoking disparity.
>>AMARI PEARSON-FIELDS: And knowledge can
kind of strike the match but in order to keep
the flame going there has to be support mechanisms
within the community.
>>DR.
SCOUT: Part of this solution is going to be
our own community members standing up and
demanding to be included in health programs
that are working on tobacco.
>>BILL BROWNING: As a smoker tobacco makes
a lot of the decisions for me.
I don’t want to have feel like I have to
go smoke because smoking has that control.
I want to be able to say I, I can do what
I want.
>>AMARI PEARSON-FIELDS: I have now been smoke
free for about 15 years.
Quitting smoking was incredibly liberating.
It’s time to make a change and save our
community, and save our own lives.
>>BILL BROWNING: I’ve spent 26 years listening
to nicotine, instead of myself.
Yea, it’s time to quit.
