|
Annual Youth Summit a Success
By Melanie Norris - Tobacco
Prevention Coordinator
On Friday, February 20th, 2009,
100 youth and adult advisors attended Tobacco Free
Benton-Franklin Counties’ annual Youth Summit held at the Red
Lion Hotel in Pasco.
This year the feature presentation was
Choice and Consequences “The Real Inside Story”. This
presentation gave attendees the chance to see what choices
related to drugs, alcohol, and tobacco did to the body as
presenters had actual human organs affected to display. This
powerful presentation about healthy and unhealthy choices helped
youth understand how, drugs, alcohol and tobacco can affect the
body. In addition to the feature presentation, youth were able
to see and touch the organs and ask questions of the presenters
during the workshop rotation part of the day.
Other workshops that were offered were
Tobacco 101, Media Literacy and Public Speaking! High students
also had the opportunity to get their picture taken for a chance
to be in the upcoming No Stank You commercial. This was part of
the Department of Health’s effort to include as many teens as
possible in the state’s current media campaign.
The day was a huge success as students
learned something new, had a lot of fun and took the information
back to share with their peers.
For more information please contact Melanie
Norris and
Melanie@tobacco-free.net
or 374-8742.
The Youth Summit Reviewed by
Youth
By Corey Wakeley -
Marketing Director
Carly Payne, a student at Richland High
School was impacted by seeing and feeling the differences
between healthy and unhealthy organs during her Truth and
Consequences workshop. She also learned that everyone’s body
is different and will be affected by tobacco in different ways.
She would love for Truth and Consequences to present
information to her whole school.
“Swallow your ums” is was Lauren Davies,
from Richland High School, learned in the workshop, The Art of
Speaking. She learned that people have different learning styles
and each style needs to be addressed when giving a speech.
Kennewick High School student, Serena
Snyder, learned that the average nonsmoker saves about $3000 a
year more than a smoker, something she thinks smokers don’t
think about. She also learned that because there are no
regulations on tobacco anything can be added to tobacco such as
dangerous chemicals.
Media Literacy gave Meghan Siefken, a
Kennewick High student, a new look at how she views television
commercials. She learned that if she can breakdown and
deconstruct ads then it is less likely that she will be affected
by them. She also said that it seems like the “media think that
young people are idiots.”
The workshops from the Summit were given
great evaluations overall and were met with enthusiasm from the
youth who attended. Most youth plan to take information that
they learned back to their schools and influence their peers.
For more information contact Corey Wakeley
at
corey@tobacco-free.net.
Big
Tobacco fighting for market share in Smokeless Tobacco
By Amy Ward - Executive Director
American smokers are buying fewer and fewer cigarettes.
Smoking bans and health concerns have led to the decline of
between 3 and 4 percent a year. By comparison, smokeless tobacco
sales have grown by about 5 to 6 percent per year. That increase
can be attributed to a perceived reduced health risk of using
smokeless tobacco compared to smoking, and the increased amount
of advertising produced by smokeless tobacco manufacturers.
In April of 1993 Philip Morris created "Marlboro Friday"
where the price of a pack of Marlboro cigarettes was cut by 20
percent in an effort to chop away at R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.'s
cigarette sales and cement its top market share. It looks as
though Morris is looking to repeat their advertising blitz only
this time it won’t be “Marlboro Friday”, but “Skoal Sunday”
having recently acquired Skoal from United States Tobacco
company for $10.4 billion dollars.
RJ Reynolds is moving deeper into the manufacturing of
smokeless tobacco with their acquisition of the Conwood company
which manufactures Grizzly chewing tobacco. Grizzly recently
posted a 10 percent increase in their operating profit in the
third quarter delivering double-digit volume growth.
Skoal, Copenhagen and Grizzly all have between 22 percent and
24 percent of the U.S. market share, according to Bill Godshall,
the executive director of SmokeFree Pennsylvania.
As the number of smokers declines their will be a definite
reduction in the number of smoking related illness, smoking
related deaths and smoking related accidents. However, will
those reduced numbers be overshadowed by the increase of
smokeless tobacco related illness and death?
By Richard Craver | Journal Reporter
Winston/Salem Journal
Published: January 25, 2009
For more information contact Amy Ward at
amy@tobacco-free.net
For more information
about these trainings, contact:
Tobacco Prevention Resource Center
2500 NE 65th Avenue
Vancouver, WA 98661-6812 |
Tel: (360) 750-7500
Fax: (360) 750-9142
tprc@esd112.org |
|
