LGBT Tobacco Action Plan

TTAC is providing technical assistance resources to enable development of the National LGBT Communities Tobacco Action Plan. With planning started in December 2002, the Action Plan represents a wide-ranging community process that included a Working Meeting to develop the Action Plan and opportunities for Internet-based input and feedback. Such a plan was one of the wish list items tobacco activists had listed a year earlier at the first national LGBTI Tobacco Summit.

The vision for the Action Plan is to establish key criteria and goals to actively address and fight the disproportionate consumption and health burden of tobacco use in the LGBT youth and adult communities through synergistic collaboration on research, prevention, policy, and education at the local, state, and national levels.

Several national LGBT organizations convened the Action Plan Working Meeting: LLEGO, the National Coalition for LGBT Health, the National Association of LGBT Community Centers, the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association, the Mautner Project for Lesbians with Cancer, the National Youth Advocacy Coalition, the National Coalition of Lesbian and Feminist Cancer Projects and the National Association of Lesbian and Gay Addiction Professionals. A 22-member steering committee was organized, representing LGBT groups nationwide, who recruited additional participants resulting in a diverse group of 64 LGBT tobacco control advocates at a planning meeting in October 2003 in Washington, DC.

The CDC Office on Smoking and Health and The California Endowment committed partial funding for the travel of participants through grants to the National Association of LGBT Community Centers. TTAC consultants have finalized a draft of the Action Plan and are inviting public comment until July 12, 2004.

Review the Draft National LGBT Communities Tobacco Action Plan. If you have questions about the document, please email the Lead Editor, Pat Dunn, or complete the feedback form.

Most participants in the Action Plan developed "Personal Action Plans" to commit to specific individual efforts toward reducing LGBT smoking. You can review the Personal Action Plans and submit your own, or to get information or involved in efforts to implement the LGBT Tobacco Action Plan, contact Donald Hitchcock at the National Coalition for LGBT Health, coalition@lgbthealth.net or Scout, scoutdc@aol.com. To be automatically added to the LGBT Tobacco Action Plan listserve, send a blank email to tobaccoactionplan-subscribe@groups.queernet.org.