Barb Tarbox, MSM (April 10, 1961 – May 18, 2003) was one of the most well-known anti-smoking activists in Canada; a lifelong smoker dying of brain and lung cancers whose very open and frank discussions of her illness, its cause and its consequences, propelled her to the Canadian national stage. During the last months of Tarbox's life she went around Canada teaching young adults the consequences of smoking. Perhaps most memorably, she emphasized how she was unable to quit smoking even after she found out that she had cancer.
Tarbox died at a hospital in Edmonton on May 18, 2003 at the age of 42 from brain cancer and lung cancer.
On December 5, 2003, Barb Tarbox was posthumously awarded the Meritorious Service Medal by Her Excellency, the Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson, Governor General of Canada, for devotion to the anti-smoking cause. The decoration was accepted in Ottawa by her daughter, Mackenzie.
"Barb's Miracle", a book by Greg Southam and David Staples, chronicles the last days of Tarbox's life.
On December 30, 2010, the Government of Canada unveiled tougher anti-smoking images on their cigarette packaging including two images which feature Barb Tarbox during her last days.
In highschool at the age of 14 and 16 she was a model for fashion companies and joined many sports in her school. She wanted to be popular and being a model wasn't enough so that is how she became a smoker.
Famous quotes containing the word tarbox:
“Too many photographers try too hard. They try to lift photography into the realm of Art, because they have an inferiority complex about their Craft. You and I would see more interesting photography if they would stop worrying, and instead, apply horse-sense to the problem of recording the look and feel of their own era.”
—Jessie Tarbox Beals (1870–1942)