HEALTH CANADA CAMPAIGN ENCOURAGES SMOKERS TO QUIT
By Adnews Staff
Health Canada has begun a new bilingual television advertising campaign that encourages Canadians to quit smoking. Health Minister Anne McLellan said the campaign is aimed at smokers who already know the dangers of smoking and who would like to quit. Two commercials, one in English and one in French, are running on major Canadian networks. They are the first in a series of ads that will follow two characters called Bob and Martin for two years as they quit smoking. Each ad displays the address of Health Canada's Web site at <http://www.gosmokefree.ca> and its toll-free telephone number, both of which offer information for quitting smoking. Visitors to the Web site can also join the e-Quit program and receive a 30-day series of e-mail messages intended to help them through the process of quitting. The launch of the campaign, created by BCP of Montreal, coincided with national non-smoking week in Canada. Recently Health Canada ran several campaigns that focused on second-hand smoke. The first was about second-hand smoke in the home and the second about second-hand smoke in the workplace. The third campaign was aimed at youth.