Video: Smoking Kids Help Adults Quit

A hard-hitting anti-smoking campaign in Thailand is pulling out the big guns—and small people—with a new PSA featuring kids approaching adult smokers to ask, "Do you have a light?" The Thai Health Promotion Foundation conducted a social experiment with the documentary-style commercial (below), Smoking Kid. None of the smokers agrees to give the kids a light; they remind them instead that smoking is harmful. One man lectures: “If you smoke, you die faster. Don’t you want to live and play?” The kids then turn the tables on the adults, asking "So why are you smoking?” and hand out a brochure for a smoking cessation helpline. Since airing the commercial, the foundation says calls to the helpline have increased by 40%. The ad also notes that after the children walked away, many adult smokers threw away their cigarettes—but none threw away the smoking cessation brochure.