McMaster campus groups and the City health department are clearing the air about tobacco use with a half-day event, “Seeing through the haze: the tobacco industry exposed” taking place today (Wednesday)from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. in the McMaster University Student Centre Marketplace.

Garfield Mahood, executive director of the Non-Smokers' Rights' Association (NSRA) will be the featured keynote speaker at the event, organized by Leave the Pack Behind, the McMaster University Campus Health Centre, and The City of Hamilton Public Health & Community Services Department. The three-hour forum will include guest exhibitors, video presentations. Mahood's address will take place at 11 a.m.

“Tobacco industry products kill 45,000 Canadians every year,” says Sanjay Patel, campus co-ordinator of Leave the Pack Behind at McMaster. “That's 123 people every day. This event was organized to expose the tobacco industry and its role in the tobacco epidemic.”

The inaugural forum is intended to engage students, faculty, and the community in a dialogue about what can be done at the community level to counter the predatory marketing practices of the tobacco industry.

“The tobacco industry has been manipulating people for a very long time and most people have no idea how far that deception goes,” says Patel. “If we can get people thinking and talking about what they can do as individuals or groups to counter the tobacco industry then we've made a difference.”

Health Canada's Canadian Tobacco Use Monitoring Survey (CTUMS) for the first half of 2003 reported that 30 per cent of young adults between 20-24 years of age smoked, while overall smoking rates among Canadian youth age 15-19 declined to 18 per cent during the same period. Both age groups are critical to the tobacco industry and are focal points of their aggressive marketing campaigns.