Santa Monica Daily Press, July 04, 2011

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MONDAY, JULY 4, 2011

Volume 10 Issue 198

Santa Monica Daily Press NEW AGE OF CHEMISTRY SEE PAGE 6

COMMUNITYPROFILES

CONSUELO PEREZ

We have you covered

THE HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY! ISSUE

Santa Monicans react to new graphic cigarette warning labels BY JESSICA JUNG Special to the Daily Press

MID-CITY Purchase a pack of cigarettes and get a blackened lung, rotten teeth or an oxygen mask — these are just a few of nine graphic warning labels the FDA unveiled recently in what was the most significant change to cigarette labels in the last 25 years. While the bold new warning labels, which will cover 50 percent of cigarette packaging, won’t appear in packs of smokes until 2012, residents are already reacting to them, and those reactions are mixed. Michael G. saw a sampling of the labels last week shortly after purchasing a Big Gulp at a 7-Eleven on Santa Monica Boulevard. “I think they’re ridiculous,” he said. “They’re no deterrent. Anyone who smokes already knows what it does to them. I’m hooked, I’m done and I’ve been smoking for a third of my life, so this isn’t going to do anything to me. I already know this.” While the FDA is implementing these new warnings to help prevent children from smoking and help adults quit, he doesn’t have full hope about its purpose for children. “It may be a deterrent for children, but unfortunately just like any other kid who started smoking, it’s through peer pressure,” said the 44-year-old carpenter, who was peer pressured into taking his father’s pack of Pall Malls when he was young. For 29-year-old computer programmer Carlos Montes, the warning labels do exactly what the FDA is aiming for. “If I were to buy cigarettes, I wouldn’t want to see that and would not buy them. I would not want that to happen to me,” said Montes, reacting to an image of rotten teeth. Walking on Ocean Park Boulevard with his sandwich and headed back to work, Montes started to lose his appetite on the second disturbing photo he saw. “I just don’t want to see it. I don’t like them at all. I guess I’m supposed to link that smoking is a cause of their death? I think this is a post-autopsy? Scary,” he said about a warning label depicting a man on his death

Ashley Archibald ashley@smdp.com

PEREZ

Achieving the dream BY ASHLEY ARCHIBALD Daily Press Staff Writer

SAMOHI Consuelo Perez looked every inch the consummate professional that she is when she approached the podium to deliver her report on the English Learners’ Advisory Committee (ELAC) to the Board of Education. In her native Spanish, she eloquently made the case for keeping whole the funding for Spanish-language classes for students who are still learning English so that they can succeed in their studies alongside their English-language classmates. Perez was late to that meeting, said Aida Diaz, the education services coordinator for the district, because she had just returned from a meeting with officials at City Hall advocating on a similar topic. “I don’t pay attention to the time,” Perez said over breakfast the week before. “I love what I’m doing.” A bowl of oatmeal and fixings lay untouched in front of her as she described “what she’s doing” — forging a community of Spanish-speaking parents of Santa Monica High School students and making sure they SEE CP PAGE 7

Images courtesy FDA NOT GOOD: New tobacco labels by the FDA present a grim view of the dangers of smoking.

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