Learning Objectives: Attendees will be able to describe methods to encourage and track tobacco-control policies and legislation. Note: During and after the conference, New Jersey GASP will help attendees create activities for their sites, will supply New Jersey GASP materials and artwork that attendees can adapt for their use, and will share information and computer programs to track policies and ordinances.
Abstract: In New Jersey, smokefree individual restaurants are increasing at the rate of one a day. Tobacco-control ordinances are passing at the rate of one every other week. Almost half of New Jersey’s 566 municipalities have passed at least one tobacco-control ordinance. These policies and ordinances are tracked in a sophisticated, searchable database, available online at www.njgasp.org.
Since 1974 New Jersey GASP (Group Against Smoking Pollution), a citizen activist, non-profit organization, has been a key actor in tobacco policy, legislation, and litigation. Over the last ten years, as private and public tobacco-control coalitions and programs increased in New Jersey, New Jersey GASP has helped train and network new colleagues and has performed the key role of tracking policies and legislation (and colleagues!).
This presentation and discussion by New Jersey GASP staff will describe methods to encourage and track tobacco-control policies and legislation, even with limited resources. Examples will include: creating attractive and effective materials; reaching out to restaurateurs via media, trade shows, and special promotions; systematically “bird-dogging” town councils and boards of health; pairing citizens who have tobacco concerns with town councils or other entities considering actions; sleuthing restaurants and ordinances via clipping service and other sources; building databases to track restaurants and ordinances; and other activities, straightforward, but with a certain flair, that anyone can do in their spare time for fun and profit.
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