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Keeping Kids Tobacco-Free

Innovator: Matt Myers

Job: President, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. Founded in 1995, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids is the nation’s largest, non-profit, private organization devoted exclusively to reducing tobacco use among children.

Bright Idea: A robust partnership has emerged between NEA and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids to educate young people about the deadly effects of tobacco, spur them into action, and motivate them to keep their lives from going up in smoke. According to Myers, teachers play an absolutely critical role in influencing kids to make a tobacco-free life part of who they are.

“We truly have a crisis with tobacco use among children, although many people believed wesolved the problem long ago,” says Myers. “The truth is that tobacco use rates among adolescents began growing in 1991 and reached near-record proportions by 1996.”

Owing to this increase, he says, is the targeted efforts by tobacco companies to market more effectively to kids in the 1990s, following a drop in price on the brands children smoked most. The result: Smoking rates among children literally skyrocketed between 1993 and 1996.

To combat this growing epidemic, the Campaign is working with NEA to develop a model curriculum to help identify ways in which the tobacco industry manipulates young people and to teach students advocacy skills to fight back. Currently being tested in Connecticut and Maryland, the curriculum helps participating teachers to work with kids in real life anti-tobacco advocacy projects.

“NEA has worked very closely with us to develop a model curriculum for the fourth and sixth grades, which we are now pilot testing and hope will go nationwide,” says Myers. “We shouldn’t underestimate the importance of teachers' giving kids the real facts.”

The curriculum guide includes a host of age-appropriate activities—for example, having kids go out to look at convenience stores so they can see the kinds of tobacco advertising that exist, very often right next to the candy counter.

“We’ve done studies that as convenience stores move closer and closer to elementary schools, you not only find more tobacco ads, but more and more of them are at the three-foot level or lower,” says Meyer. “Once kids begin to recognize what the tobacco industry is doing, they feel energized and empowered to take control of their lives. They become the best advocates.”

Why is it so important for kids to be tobacco free? Consider these shocking statistics compiled from research by the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:

• The average child starts smoking at the age of 13 or 14. By the time they are high school seniors, 34 percent of all children are already smokers.
• Two-thirds of the kids who start smoking want to quit by the time they’re 16 or 17 and can’t because they’re already addicted to nicotine.
• Unless current rates are reversed, more than 5 million children under age 18 alive today will eventually die from smoking-related disease.

“The unfortunate reality is the majority of people who become long-term smokers are addicted long before they’re old enough to purchase tobacco products legally," Myers says. “If we can discourage kids from starting through their teenage years, the odds are that they never will.”

A second initiative that has grown as a result of the Campaign’s partnership with NEA is the number of kids participating in Kick Butts Day, a nationwide event that mobilizes thousands of young people in more than 150 cities to help curb tobacco use and expose the harmful effects of marketing tobacco to America’s youth.

“It’s a terrific success story,” says Myers. “Kids all over the country come together in early April and engage in a series of activities telling the tobacco companies that they no longer are going to be duped by them. Our belief is that if we only give kids the opportunity to be leaders, they themselves will lead their peers.”

The 1999 Kick Butts Day will take place April 5. The Campaign recognizes outstanding young tobacco control activists who are leaders in their communities with its Youth Advocates of the Year Awards, and it has published a manual for youth advocates that teaches kids how to initiate and implement anti-tobacco campaigns in their schools and communities year-round.

“Everybody in the educational process has a vitally important role in reinforcing the positive messages about being smoke-free—from coaches, to bus drivers, to counselors, to teachers, to the people who maintain the buildings themselves," Myers says. "The goal is to deliver a consistent message.”

Impact: Kick Butts Day began in 1996 in only 32 schools. The event now encompasses nearly 1,200 events nationwide, has attracted national media and participation by Vice President Al Gore and other high-level governmental officials, and mobilizes tens of thousands of kids in all 50 states and abroad.

“This is really an opportunity for kids and teachers alike to bring a good health message into the classroom and allow them to engage in direct activities—as part of their educational activities—to take control,” Myers says.

For More: Call 800/284-KIDS or visit www.tobaccofreekids.org or www.kickbutts@tobaccofreekids.org