Anti-Smoking Poster Boy Still Lights Up

'I'm afraid to quit' despite amputation, heart attacks, stroke
By Zach Samalin,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 12, 2008 7:26 PM CST
Anti-Smoking Poster Boy Still Lights Up
This image provided by Britain's Department of Health showing a healthy lung, left and a diseased lung, right, is one of the graphic pictures to be place on packs of cigarettes to discourage smokers. Words failed to stamp out smoking, so Britain will require graphic pictures of diseased organs on cigarette...   (Associated Press)

New Yorkers have grown to know Skip Legault's face well from anti-smoking ads in the subway and on TV over the past few weeks. A smoker since he was eight, Legault has lost a leg to blood clots, suffered two heart attacks in his twenties, and had a debilitating stroke. Worst of all, ABC reports, he can't quit—a detail not made clear in the ad campaign.

"I'm afraid to quit," Legault said, adding, "I don't feel like a hypocrite, because I'm not telling people what to do. I'm not telling them not to smoke. I'm just showing them what happens." Apparently Legault's pathos is what makes the ads compelling: "He's an extreme example of what smoking can do to somebody," said a New York Health Department spokeswoman. (More smoking cessation stories.)

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