The Tobacco Freedom Train is a traveling art exhibition that includes numerous displays designed to engage the community on the urgent need for tobacco use prevention. The best artwork from STAMP's Art Contest is prominently displayed in this exhibition. All this artwork has been received from artists, of all ages, contributing to making the United States? first tobacco control postage stamp.

The Tobacco Freedom Train uses the railroad train metaphor in the hope that every community will build their own Tobacco Freedom Train. Like the train in the Arlo Guthrie song "City of New Orleans," locomotives were named after the city they served. The "City of Santa Ana" Tobacco Freedom Train has been traveling through that city for over 4 years. Some 8,000 youth have contributed to the artwork that is displayed in this exhibit and over 30 locations have hosted "Whistle Stops" allowing the exhibition to be viewed by over 75,000 people.

If you would like to make a difference in your community, consider becoming an ?engineer? of you own Tobacco Freedom Train. Tobacco control postage stamp art contests can be easily conducted at several schools or youth organizations. Once the best art is selected, why not take it one tour of all the schools, community groups, faith organizations and City Hall. Along with the artwork, create provocative displays that can give the public pause for thought.

This type of exhibition can motivate otherwise passive people. Once your viewing audience learns such things as the fact that about 115,000 babies died each year from "Tobacco Induced Abortion," it is a good time to provide them with brochures to address such dangers. Printed material on "Pregnancy and Tobacco," "Saying No to Environmental Smoke," "Dangers of Spit Tobacco," "Stress Management" and other appropriate literature can drive home the Tobacco Freedom Train's message that it is "Time To Care."

Some of the more engaging displays are "Smoking Debi" where a hose attached to a humidifier is placed behind a hole in the poster of a woman smoking that has had her larynx removed. The poster and it"s message comes alive for kids who now literally see "smoke" coming out of a hole in someone?s throat other than there mouth. Also, "Baby Lotto" intrigues a lot of kids with a baby's bottle filled with cigarette butts, packages and molasses that resembles the tar someone might inhale if they smoked a pack a day for a year. This baby?s bottle is then glued to a turntable that can be spun by hand. The spinning bottle can come to a stop on any one of three sections of silver platter upon which the baby bottle rests; "It's a Boy" or "It's a Girl" or "It's Dead!"

Remember, what kind of a display will make people stop and think? Also remember that people are dying from tobacco use, not statistics. To convey the anguish of tobacco related diseases or the grief of losing a loved one is a large part of what this type of exhibition is all about. To get people to feel and to care about stopping tobacco abuse of children pronto is what the Freedom Train concept is trying to achieve. More than passive smoke, passive people will be the death of us all.

Along with the art is a memorial to honor the loved ones who have died from tobacco related illnesses. Some 40 well known celebrities are honored with their name and photograph behind a flickering candle. An increasing number of displays are added to the Tobacco Freedom Train to help convey the enormity of the tobacco crisis and to convey just why tobacco control should be a personal issue for everyone.

The Tobacco Freedom Train is designed to travel through the community taking its life saving message everywhere. The "Whistle Stops" are scheduled for local schools, community centers, faith organizations, service groups, hospitals, and such. Any organization is welcome to host this exhibit for the purpose of promoting tobacco use prevention and sending the message that it is "Time to Care."

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