From Promoting Tobacco to Tobacco Prevention
Tobacco has a deep, rich, and strong core in West Virginia culture. West Virginia ranks #1 in the nation for spit tobacco use among males, #2 in the nation for smoking during pregnancy, and #3 in the nation for adult smoking prevalence. Southern West Virginia spends over $200,000 a day on tobacco products.
The paradigm example of tobacco culture in West Virginia is the “Mail Pouch Tobacco Barn”. In the 1920s the Bloch Brothers from Wheeling, West Virginia created the West Virginia Mail Pouch Tobacco Company. The company then commissioned painters to create the famous “Mail Pouch Barns” which have dotted the landscape of rural communities in West Virginia, Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The most famous barn painter was Harley Warrick. Warrick painted over 2,000 Mail Pouch Barns. This was an ingenious cost efficient marketing strategy.
While these barns are a part of West Virginia’s landscape and heritage – they are also a deadly reminder of the cost of tobacco use. One in five West Virginia’s die from a tobacco related illness.
The Southern Coalfields Tobacco Prevention Coalition Network in conjunction with the Monroe & Summers County Tobacco Prevention Coalition, the Monroe County Cancer Coalition, the Monroe County Coalition for Children and Families, WVU School of Dentistry, the John Allen Family, and the West Virginia Division of Tobacco Prevention will be unveiling the nation’s first “Tobacco Prevention Barn” in Lindside (Monroe County), West Virginia (on US 219) on July 26, 2009 at 3 p.m. This innovative strategy is part of CADCA’s National Coalition Institute’s Seven Strategies for Community Change: changing the physical design of the environment to reduce risk or enhance protection.
