Education Law

Give the Tobacco Companies a Kick on Kick Butts Day!

BoardBuzz is happy to announce that March 25, 2009 marks the fourteenth anniversary of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids’ Kick Butts Day, a day for kids everywhere to stand up to the tobacco industry and let them know that their actions toward youth are unacceptable. 

On Kick Butts Day, children and adults across the country participate in a variety of different ways: they hold awareness events and contests, create public service announcements, and work to pass local ordinances.  The best part is that Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids has a guide to help plan events that are quick, low-cost, and easy, as well as a website to register and promote your event!

This is a great opportunity for BoardBuzz readers to partner with local youth to work on a comprehensive tobacco-free school policy!  Kids can be a very powerful force in persuading the powers that be, and fun activities can be incorporated for some added impact.

Not convinced?  BoardBuzz invites you to consider these facts from the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids:

(1) Every day, 3,500 kids start smoking, and 1,000 become addicted to tobacco; (2) Tobacco kills one person every 6.5 seconds; (3) Most adults who have ever been regular smokers started smoking when they were teenagers; and (4) More than six million of the children and youth alive today will die prematurely of tobacco related causes.

Kick Butts Day is not about shaming smokers, but it is about shaming the tobacco industry for the way they blatantly target youth in their advertisements.

BoardBuzz readers may already know that tobacco companies view young people as replacement customers for the ones who are dying every 6.5 seconds and that they market their products in magazines like Rolling Stone and Sports Illustrated with very high youth readership, and in plain view from schools and playgrounds. 

And now, a report called Deadly in Pink warns that Big Tobacco is increasing its targeting of women and girls.  They are rolling out advertisements in magazines like Cosmopolitan, InStyle, and Marie Claire, which are very popular among teen girls.  Worse, these ads don’t just feature regular cigarettes.  With names like “Superslims Ultra Lites” and “Camel No. 9s” and packaged in “purse packs,” these cigarettes are specifically designed to play on the weight- and fashion- consciousness of young girls. The ads also tout promotional giveaways of lip gloss, cell phone jewelry, and other goodies that are clearly meant to entice teen girls. 

BoardBuzz is asking you to not let tobacco companies get away with this.  Stand up with the young people in your schools and community on Kick Butts Day, March 25, 2009! 

To learn more about tobacco-free schools, visit NSBA’s School Health Programs website where you can access useful resources, links and order a “Tobacco Use Prevention 101″ Packet.

Full post as published by BoardBuzz: NSBA's Daily Weblog on March 21, 2009 (boomark / email).