The CDC’s New Anti-Smoking Ads Target Tobacco Country

Early in his career, Tom Frieden worked in a psychiatric hospital where cigarettes were a reward. "You behave well, you get more cigarettes. You behave poorly, you don’t get cigarettes," said Frieden. "In the same way that cigarettes were in the rations of people in the military, cigarettes were in the whole culture of the psychiatric community."

Now, Frieden is director of the Centers for Disease Control, and he’s trying to change the culture in the parts of America where smoking is still widely accepted. A new $70 million installment of the CDC's anti-smoking ad campaign targets current and former members of the military and people with mental health conditions. The ads, which show former smokers with tobacco-related diseases, will run most frequently in areas where smoking rates are highest, including parts of Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, and West Virginia.