A new anti-smoking campaign that uses emotional personal stories to warn Wisconsin citizens about the dangers of secondhand smoke kicked off Tuesday.

The campaign, sponsored by the Department of Health and Family Services, will feature nine radio commercials with nine different Wisconsin residents narrating their negative experiences with secondhand smoke.

St. Mary�s Hospital President Frank Byrne said the campaign would influence people in a different way because it is about individual cases, not just statistics.

�Hearing those people�s stories, seeing how they�ve suffered, will hopefully help others quit and inspire others not to start smoking in the first place,� Byrne said.

One of the stories came from Elize Greene of Milwaukee. Her 6-year-old daughter had an asthma attack at a bowling alley they were told was smoke-free during the day.

�She said to me, �Mama, my throat feels weird.� And she had these huge eyes,� Greene said. �Sure enough, people at the bar were smoking.�

Greene tried to argue with the manager, but he stood by the policy allowing smoking at the bar, so she left with her twin daughters.

Another story came from University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point freshman, Harrison Loveall of Appleton. He too was at a family event at a bowling ally and was exposed to secondhand smoke.

�When I started to feel the tightness in my chest, I got scared, and it just kept getting tighter,� Loveall said.

Loveall fell to the ground, and an ambulance arrived shortly. At the hospital, Loveall was informed that he had severe asthma that would not have been triggered, were it not for the secondhand smoke.

In addition, the campaign urges people to visit the website www.mysmokefreestory.com and tell their own secondhand smoke stories. The site will also feature extended videos of Wisconsinites telling their stories.

Each storyteller was found through partners of DHFS, such as the nonprofit Smoke Free Wisconsin, according to DHFS Media Coordinator, Spencer Straub.

The seven other stories vary from problems with smoking in the workplace to a bar owner who was diagnosed with cancer as a result of 20 years of secondhand smoke inhalation.

DHFS Secretary Kevin Hayden hopes the campaign will persuade citizens to support the Smoke Free Wisconsin bill, which would ban smoking in workplaces including taverns and restaurants. Similar bills have been enacted in the last year in Illinois and Minnesota.

�It is time for Wisconsin to act now, so that Wisconsin does not become the ashtray of the Midwest,� Hayden said.

The bill passed the Senate Committee on Public Health earlier this month. Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker, D-Weston, currently has the option of scheduling the bill.

Decker�s spokesperson, Carrie Lynch, said Tuesday senators and representatives from Smoke Free Wisconsin are currently revising the bill.

The secondhand smoke campaign will run until March 30.