Eileen Boyce
City/county Editor

To meet their goal of starting a tobacco-free movement throughout Dane County, the Tobacco-Free Dane County Coalition will present a “Clearing the Air” Conference at the Alliant Energy Center Friday.
The Tobacco-Free Dane County Coalition reports tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death in Dane County, Wis., and across the United States.
Tobacco control groups from around the state — including the American Lung Association, Smokefree Wisconsin, Centers for Prevention and Intervention (CPI) and the Center for Tobacco Research & Intervention (CTRI) — will take part in the one-day event. Organizers said they hope to educate participants on topics like how to make your community smoke-free, proven cessation methods, economic realities of tobacco control and preventing childhood secondhand smoke exposure.
Guest speakers State Rep. Mark Miller, Carrie Sullivan, Executive Director of Smoke-Free Wisconsin, Rock County Tobacco-Free Kids and others will share their experiences and lead discussions on how communities can effectively implement tobacco-free strategies.
“We?re making a real effort to cover all bases,” Rick Orton, coordinator of the Tobacco-Free Dane County Coalition said in a statement. “We have a great lineup of guest speakers and topics to cover. And with an expected attendance of over 200 people, we?re hopeful many participants will come away with the knowledge needed to build the tobacco-free movement in Dane County.”
In addition to guest speakers, the conference will also include morning and afternoon workshops. Participants will have the opportunity to learn first-hand how to successfully build tobacco-free initiatives in their communities. Workshops will also deal with other topics such as how to use brief intervention to help people quit smoking, how to incorporate cessation as a key component of health care, how to find tobacco-free resources on the web and more.