Posted on October 3, 2005 at 2:10 p.m.

BIRMINGHAM, AL — An exhibit of editorial cartoons dealing with smoking and tobacco use is on display at the Alabama Museum of the Health Sciences on the UAB (University of Alabama at Birmingham) campus. Featuring more than 40 original editorial cartoons by nationally known cartoonists, the show includes smoking-related items from the collection of the University of Alabama Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society, including front-page headlines that inspired the cartoons, cigarette ads and other smoking-related items.

“Cartoonists Take Up Smoking” retraces the modern era of anti-smoking advocacy, as seen through the eyes of newspaper editorial cartoonists.

“These works of art have satirized tobacco company executives and lobbyists, from their sabotage of clean indoor air legislation and airline smoking bans to their circumvention of restrictions on cigarette advertising and political contributions,” said Alan Blum, M.D., director of the Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society. “But the cartoons also poke fun at the intolerance shown by some anti-smoking crusaders and expose the hypocrisy of state attorneys-general seeking cash damages from an industry with whom the states had long been in cahoots. Above all, editorial cartoonists have revealed that the most addictive thing about tobacco is money.”

The exhibit runs through February at the Alabama Museum of the Health Sciences, on the third floor of the Lister Hill Library of the Health Sciences, 1700 University Boulevard. The museum is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.