STUDENTS HEAR ADVICE FROM TOBACCO PREVENTION SPEAKER
Over and over and over, students are shown pictures of people
with their jaws removed because of cancer, decaying mouths and
other pictures displaying the results of both smoking and
smokeless tobacco; and yet still 90 percent of tobacco users
begin before the age of 18, despite the dangers they know are
involved.
Katy Pezzimenti, the statewide Youth Empowerment coordinator for
the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services, gave
a different presentation Monday - one that refrained from
descriptive pictures intended to scare students into refusing
tobacco and focused more on teaching students about what exactly
tobacco companies do, how they do it and how students are
fighting back.
Lambert and Froid joined the Sidney students while Pezzimenti
explained the dangers of smokeless tobacco. . . .
In Montana, the truth type program is called r.e.A.C.T. Against
Corporate Tobacco, also started by teens, and is funded and
staffed by the Montana Tobacco Use Prevention Program. It
travels across the nation to join other youth empowerment
movements in an attempt to fight back against tobacco
companies.
For more information on the Teen Summit, or to get active in the
Sidney community against tobacco, contact Holly Salsbury and the
Richland County Health Department by calling 433-2207.
