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Youth were seen all over Salt Lake City today with body bags representing the one in three smokers who will die from their deadly addiction. Members of the Utah Phoenix Alliance staged a rally at the Salt Lake City Public Library, complete with a giant awareness ribbon made of body bags, in honor of Kick Butts Day. Project: 1200 also participated in today’s events.
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Kicking Butts on Film
Are you an aspiring filmmaker?� Do you or the youth you work with love acting?� Here's a chance to share your anti-tobacco message with the world.� Find out more about how you can reach hundreds of thousands of people by making a video public service announcement (PSA) and posting it on YouTube. This is a great opportunity for youth to stand out, speak up, and seize control against Big Tobacco.
Estimated preparation time: 2 months Cost: $0 - $200
* Download this individual activity sheet
KBD Carnival
A KBD Carnival is a creative and fun way to give people important information about tobacco use and the tobacco industry.� It's also a great way for youth advocates to lead the fight for policies, programs and practices that protect kids from tobacco use and secondhand smoke.
Estimated preparation time: 1-2 months Cost: $50 - $100 or more
They put what in a Cigarette?!
There's a lot more than tobacco in cigarettes, spit tobacco and secondhand smoke. There are plenty of chemicals that can also be found in everyday household products.� For this activity, you will create a display that tells others about these ingredients and exposes the truth.
Estimated preparation time: 3-4 weeks Cost: $10 - $20
Thank you for making Kick Butts Day 2009 a Success!
Teachers, youth leaders, and advocates from all over helped youth stand out, speak up and seize control against Big Tobacco with fun, educational activities and events on Kick Butts Day.
Check out these Kick Butts Day events.
Did you miss Kick Butts Day this year? You can hold a Kick Butts Day event any time, so it's not too late! Use this site to get the tools you need to make your Kick Butts Day a roaring success.
The anti-tobacco lobby arrives on cash-starved Beacon Hill Wednesday with what activists believe is a policy and revenue jackpot.
Tobacco Free Massachusetts says last year's $1 increase in the state cigarette tax to $2.51 per pack sent more cost-conscious residents, including teens, to less expensive "other tobacco products" like small cigars, chewing tobacco and roll-your-own tobacco, which were not hit with higher taxes.
But new poll results from Tobacco Free Massachusetts show 81 percent of likely Massachusetts voters, including 73 percent of Republicans, support taxing such products at the same rate as cigarettes. And 62 percent would be more likely to vote for a legislative candidate who supports taxing other tobacco products at the cigarette tax rate.
Anti-tobacco activists are pitching the tax hike, which already has 30 legislative sponsors, as a powerful public health tool, politically popular and a potential source of between $10 million and $15 million in new revenues.
"It's a slam dunk," said pollster Jeffrey Plaut, a partner at the New York-based Global Strategy Group. "There are few issues that generate this level of public enthusiasm."
Lawmakers and advocates are pushing to raise taxes on smokeless tobacco, loose tobacco and small cigars, saying it could net between $10 million and $13 million annually for the state.
Members of the prevention advocacy group Tobacco Free Mass, plus two state lawmakers, held a news conference Wednesday launching an effort to bring the tax on these tobacco products to the same level as cigarette taxes.
Officials say because the tax on other products wasn't raised when the state cigarette tax increased by $1 to $2.51 in July, more teenagers - sensitive to the price - are switching to other tobacco options.
Advocates believe raising the tax will prevent a teen market for chewing tobacco or flavored small cigars, with revenue going toward public health programs.
"What we hope will happen is that kids won't try tobacco in the first place because it's cost-prohibitive,"
Framingham-based Tobacco Free Massachusetts says it has a plan - and public backing - to provide new revenue for the cash-starved state budget while further limiting tobacco use.
Appearing at a Kick-Butts Day rally at the State House against tobacco use, co-sponsored by MassYouth Against Tobacco, the group gave its backing to legislation that would extend the state's tax on cigarettes to other tobacco products. The tax recently increased by $1 to $2.51 per pack.
Supporters said extending the tax to roll-your-own tobacco, small cigars, and "smokeless," or chewing tobacco, and other related products would create an additional $12 million to $15 million in annual revenue for the state.
Smokers, especially teens, were driven to the less expensive products after last year's tax, Tobacco Free Massachusetts advocates said.
"The really awful thing about this is that companies are attacking these folks," said Sen. Susan Fargo, D-Lincoln, after she addressed hundreds of middle and high school students who campaigned for MassYouth Against Tobacco. "If they can hook them at an early age, they will have them for life. This is a pernicious problem."
Fargo said state budget cuts have limited tobacco control programs. By increasing tax levies on other tobacco products, or OTP's, the state would have more money to battle tobacco addiction.
Hey little girl, want a cigarette with that pack of gum?
Big tobacco companies got their butts kicked Wednesday at City Hall by a group of teenagers fighting to keep cigarette advertising out of their local bodegas and convenience stores.
"It's mostly aimed toward the little children, like your brothers and sisters. The signs are very low to the ground, and the signs are the first thing they see," said Amanda Malave, 16, a high school student from Hunts Point in the Bronx. "Our goal is to make the corner stores be free of smoking tobacco ads."
Malave and a score of other youths from around the city gathered on the City Hall steps to spotlight the issue on National Kick Butts Day.
They also issued the results of a survey of tobacco ads found in 122 convenience stores around the city. . . .
48% or more of stores placed tobacco ads at the eye level of children, a third or more of the stores placed tobacco products within 12 inches from candies and toys, and many stores had numerous tobacco advertising signs posted inside or outside their premises - with one store in Longwood, the Bronx, displaying 46 tobacco advertisements.
In Staten Island, which has the highest smoking rate of all the boroughs, a similar coalition of youth persuaded 24 stores to reduce or remove their ads over the past two years.
Jessica Safier, the program manager for the New York City Coalition for a Smoke-Free City, said the teens weren't blaming the storekeepers.
WASHINGTON COUNTY, MD - Students are observed Kick Butts Day Saturday to celebrate non-smokers, and to try and convince those who smoke to quit.
In observance of this day, students from around the county created about 6,000 paper tombstones to show the effect of tobacco on their loved ones.
It was a way to remember those who died and to honor those who are struggling with tobacco's effects.
The Student Government Association began planning this event back in December, and the number of tombstones they've created since then is just monumental.
An annual campaign to prevent children from smoking will focus on tobacco marketing to children.
The 14th annual Kick Butts Day is scheduled for Wednesday and is intended to urge Congress to pass legislation granting the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate tobacco products, according to a statement. The House Energy and Commerce Committee passed the legislation earlier this month.
Major events are planned in Columbia and Greenville.
Youths from the South Carolina Tobacco Collaborative in Columbia will gather at the State House at 11 a.m. Wednesday to encourage state legislators to pass a significant increase to South Carolina's cigarette tax.
Since its launch in 16 states this past November, The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center has graduated 250 students and enrolled another 1,707 via its ASPIRE anti-tobacco program deployed in school districts across the country.
The online course advances the institution's national commitment to helping teens kick the habit before smoking becomes a lifelong addiction. In recognition of National Kick Butts Day, Wednesday, March 25, M. D. Anderson will present a combined cash award of $1,250 to the top three organizations with the highest number of ASPIRE graduates. Awards will also be given to the organization with the highest number of participants and to the group with the most improved participation.
Kick Butts Day is a national day of activism coordinated by the Washington, DC-based Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids to raise awareness of tobacco use and the tobacco industry.
Today, one in five high school students are smoking, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. . . .
In working to reduce underage smoking rates in the U.S., parent involvement becomes critical. According to a recent study conducted by the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, anti-smoking actions such as designating the home as a smoke-free environment are directly associated with a reduction in childhood smoking behaviors.
Parents who smoke need to set a good example by quitting now before their child suffers through years of addiction . . .
March 25 is Kick Butts Day, sponsored by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, to empower youth to stand up and speak out against smoking and the dangers of tobacco use.
Chanting anti-tobacco slogans and listening to slam poetry, a group of 150 students from around the state gathered at the state Capitol yesterday lobbying for higher taxes on tobacco products.
"Other tobacco products have to go," they chanted, referring to chewing tobacco and other non-cigarette products. "Youth speaks," they said.
As lawmakers were poised yesterday to discuss several measures that would affect the tobacco settlement yesterday -- a critical source of funds for their anti-smoking programs -- the students wanted to remind lawmakers that they shouldn't be tempted to tap into anti-smoking funds to balance the budget, or they'd risk affecting the success of anti-smoking campaigns.
"We're here today because they are talking about raiding the funds and it will affect many of our programs in the Kalihi area," said Lavelle Ramos-Dias, a Kokua Kalihi Valley health educator. "The fund is for us. If they raid it, it won't be there."
Lt. Gov. James "Duke" Aiona praised their efforts to get the message out.
"You have made some significant gains in the (lower) number of smokers in the last seven years," Aiona told the gathering. "The fight is not over."
Aiona proclaimed yesterday as Kick Butts Day
In recognition of Kick Butts Day on April 2, sixth-grade students at Demopolis Middle School had a chance to "kick butts" during a poster contest demonstrating the dangers of tobacco use. The students joined thousands across the country who were taking part in Kick Butts Day, a nationwide initiative that makes kids leaders in the effort to stop youth tobacco use.
Many East Texans participated in an event to encourage students to live tobacco free lives. Wednesday is Texas Tobacco-Free Kids Day and students at schools across East Texas demonstrated on the downtown Tyler square, wore t-shirts, and learned about the awareness of tobacco use and second hand smoke. At various schools 66 teachers and students wore black shirts with tobacco facts on the font and back. The number 66 represents the number of people that die every day in Texas from tobacco related deaths.
In honor of Kick Butts Day, the Coshocton County stand team, an anti-tobacco teen group, has teamed up with Coshocton Behavioral Health Choices and Kids America to free the community of tobacco trash.
The theme, Do your part to clean up our community! 'Bag the Butts and Stuff the Snuff,' urges a tobacco trash community cleanup.
From 9 to 11 a.m. every Saturday in April, the community is invited to drop off tobacco trash at a specially marked dumpster located at Kids America