Kick Butts Day 2019 Combats Youth Nicotine Use

By Rose Rankin

Since when was nicotine part of the curriculum?  AP classes, sports/music practices, college applications, social events, family obligations — middle school and high school students have enough on our plates.

But now we have to deal with Juul? Imagine how hard it is to avoid e-cigarettes when 1 in 5 of our friends are using them. Simply walking into the bathroom—excuse me, the Juul room—is like walking into a Neapolitan haze of vape flavors.

There are well over 15,000 flavors of e-cigarettes and cigars, and studies show that flavors play a major role in tricking youth into using tobacco products — 81 percent of youth e-cigarette users started with a flavored product.

Tobacco and e-cigarette companies know exactly what they are doing. They see kids as their “replacement smokers,” and use flavors to improve the taste, reduce the harshness and make their products more appealing to young beginners. Before they know kids realize it, they have a lifelong addiction.

This has been the story for 3.6 million youth who now use e-cigarettes, including many of my peers. It’s time for U.S. and state lawmakers to ban flavored tobacco products to stop and reverse this epidemic. We hope they will stand with us on Kick Butts Day as we fight for the first tobacco-free generation.

Kick butts day is a national day of youth advocacy sponsored by the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids that empowers students to stand out, speak up and take control against Big Tobacco. On this day students are encouraged to get together and participate in different activities to make people more aware of the impact tobacco/nicotine has on their surrounding area.

The Van Buren County High School Youth Leadership Council members participated in Kick Butts Day, March 20^th, 2019, by making an informational board that had facts about e-device juices and their similarity to food products. This board was set up in the cafeteria during both high school and middle school lunches for students to see and interact with. Many students were surprised and bothered by what they saw on the board. The group also passed out gum packets and pencils with more tobacco information on them for peers to have when they were done looking at the board.

The Middle School Youth Leadership Council members also participated by making signs about nicotine use and how it affects the users and signs with sayings on them about being tobacco-free and why it is important to not use tobacco. They also held a blackout day for the students and staff to participate in on March 20^th. 

For more information on Kick Butts Day or the Van Buren County Youth Leadership Council please contact the SAFE Coalition at 319-293-3334 ext. 1017 or safe.coalition@van-burencsd.org.