Who is that Queen?
I’ve seen that face before!
Where? At my blowout 50th birthday party.
To view a few of my own photos of Her Majesty bringing royal birthday greetings to me, CLICK HERE.
But what is Her Majesty doing appearing in a bus shelter poster! What’s up with that ashtray? Perhaps it’s just the stress of Charles and Camilla’s wedding.
Seriously, it is the fabulous Bill Munroe featured in an ad for the Proud to Quit Campaign now running in Vancouver.
Xtra West, ran this feature article about the Proud to Quit Campaign.
A series of new and colourful ads have redecorated Davie St in the last few weeks, and the man behind them is hoping that they will fundamentally change the way Vancouver gays and lesbians live their lives.
The Proud to Quit anti-smoking campaign is spearheaded by campaign manager Steven RodRozen and project creator Steve McManus of Gay West. Their goal: to dramatically reduce smoking rates in the gay community, which a recent study found to be 10 percent higher than the Canadian national average.
RodRozen points to a 2000 survey by Vancouver’s Community Based Research Group, which shows 29 percent of gays and lesbians light up on a regular basis. In the general population of Canada, that number drops to 19 percent.
“You can see why Health Canada jumped on this—it’s extremely alarming,” RodRozen says.
The ads, now adorning billboards and bus shelters all over the city, as well as the pages of this paper, feature well-known members of Vancouver’s gay community talking about their own personal battles with smoking.
“We chose positive, colourful imagery and stayed away from scare tactics,” says RodRozen. “It’s all about getting people’s attention, creating awareness, providing resources and hopefully reducing the tobacco prevalence rate.”
Health Canada pledged a whopping $350,000 to the Proud to Quit campaign. This is in stark contrast to its miserly record on supporting gay health initiatives in the past. Its funding for the Canadian AIDS Strategy, for example, was frozen for 11 years until a token increase last May.
For the complete Feature Article in Xtra West, CLICK HERE.