Debi Austin | Antismoking advocate, 62

Debi Austin, 62, who smoked a cigarette through a hole in her throat to illustrate her struggle with nicotine addiction in a California public service advertisement has died of cancer, health officials and her family said Wednesday.

Ms. Austin first appeared on television in 1996, telling viewers she began smoking at age 13 and could never quit. In a quiet, halting rasp, she told the camera, "They say nicotine isn't addictive," before inhaling from a lit cigarette held to a hole in her throat. "How can they say that?" she asked viewers, as cigarette smoke wafted from the hole.

Called a stoma, the hole in her throat allowed her to breathe after her larynx was removed at age 42. She quit her two-to-three-pack-a-day habit four months after the ad. - AP