To celebrate the Great American Smokeout’s 25th Anniversary, the American Cancer Society will launch a fresh campaign across the country Thursday to discourage teenagers from smoking.

The campaign will also publicize available resources for smokers struggling to quit.

The purpose of the Smokeout celebration is to encourage as many smokers as possible to refrain from smoking for one day.

Rick Orton, coordinator for the Tobacco-free Dane County Coalition, a nonprofit organization affiliated with the city’s Division of Public Health, believes that the annual celebration has had an substantial effect on smokers in the past.

“It was founded as a way to draw primarily adults’ attention to the fact that quitting smoking is something that can and should be done,” Orton said.

Orton said in the decades since its inception, in 1976, the Great American Smokeout has made a change for the better, with increased targeting of its campaigns at teenagers and college-age students and with a focus on prevention rather than exclusively quitting.

Orton said that he believes smoking has become a more widespread phenomenon among teenagers because of the target-marketing of large tobacco companies.

“There is a rise in young adults smoking, and we believe it is due in part to the tobacco companies, which have intensified their targeting of younger and younger people,” Orton said. “[The Smokeout] evolved into a prevention campaign done primarily through schools.”

These smoking issues were also the main focus of the “Clearing the Air Conference” held last Friday at the Alliant Energy Center.

This conference featured a number of workshops dealing with helping smokers quit, dealing with youth prevention, curbing the amount of pregnant women who smoke and increasing the degree of communication with smokers who do not speak English, which leaves them vulnerable to illegible advertisements.

Josh Reed, head planner of the Clearing the Air Conference, said the event drew an ample crowd from a larger area than expected.

“There were a lot of people from outside of Dane County,” Reed said. “It was overall a very successful event.”

Reed, too, is hopeful that these types of conferences will prove to be merely first steps in a growing movement in Dane County to curb smoking not only among individuals but also in public and work places.

He said it is important that these issues be worked on “so employees aren’t forced to work in an environment where there is tobacco smoke.”

Reed just might get his wish.

Last Tuesday the Madison Common Council passed an ordinance to ban smoking in common areas of apartments with three or more units.

These common areas include parking lots, elevators, lobbies and hallways.

This upcoming Tuesday, the council is scheduled to vote on an ordinance banning smoking in every workplace in the city of Madison.

Council members say they expect the vote, which was defeated a few years ago, to be close.

Orton said it would be a good move.

“We’re trying to make some sense to people to think twice and act to make their lives healthier,” Orton said.

The Tobacco-free Dane County Coalition has begun community education programs and trained volunteers to counsel others to help them to quit their smoking habits. Orton encourages individuals interested in becoming involved with tobacco prevention and control to contact his organization at 294-5302.

“Smoking is highly addictive,” he said. “If you’ve been addicted to tobacco, there is hope and there is help.”