Jump to full article: Daily Iowan (University of Iowa), 2010-07-27
Author: KATE FOWLER
Intro: Tar Wars is one of the ways Iowa City schools are trying to prevent high-school tobacco use.
The fight against high-school smoking has been fairly successful in recent years. "Healthy People 2010," a national health initiative, resolved 10 years ago to decrease smoking among high-schoolers in the United States to 16 percent.
The Healthy People initiative reports that nationally, 19.5 percent of high-schoolers smoke. In 2000, 31.4 percent of U.S. high-school students smoked, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website.
The number of Iowa City high-school students who smoke is lower than the national level. According to an annual district survey this year, only 13 percent of Iowa City high-school students said they had ever used tobacco — a decrease from 15 percent in 2009 and 17 percent in 2008.
"The overwhelming percentage of [Iowa City] students don't use tobacco," said John Bacon, the principal of City High, 1900 Morningside Drive.
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