Fox Valley’s Community Action for Tobacco Free Living, an organization that is typical in nature but insidious in the fact that they have a “Youth Advisory Board” staffed by impressionable children.
As usual, this happy little organization is headed by a walking sterotype (i.e. a busybody woman who has worked for both the ALA and ACS over the years and now wants to “save the community from itself”) and draws it’s funding from government.
According to their Chief Nanny, they get approximately half of their funding from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (??) and the rest comes from state tobacco money.
What’s really interesting is this:
The students on our advisory board try to influence their peers to stop smoking or not start in the first place. Eleven of the 15 high schools in the two counties also offer the Teens Against Tobacco Use (TATU) program to educate younger students in grades third through seventh about the dangers of tobacco. We know the average age to start smoking is 10…
… We also have lot of work to do for the college-age students. It used to be if you made it through high school and you didn’t smoke, you wouldn’t start. That isn’t true anymore because the tobacco industry is lobbying and promoting cigarettes so much on college campuses. The 18-to-24-year-old group is the one we really need to target and work into all our plans.
So first off, the average age to start smoking is 10? They know this? Do they know what an average is? If this is indeed true, then to balance out those who start over the age of 10, you would have to have a whole lot of toddlers walking around smoking.
Second, if a “peer” had tried to influence me not to smoke while I was in high school, that “peer” would’ve ended up with a limp.
Third, once people reach and exceed the age of 18, their life is their own. A youth group targeting 18 to 24-year olds is funny at best, but still nauseating.
And finally, I want one, just ONE example of how the tobacco industry is lobbying and promoting cigarette to those clearly impressionable and feeble-minded college students. Just one.
These busy bodies need to come back down to reality and fast. I would laugh if I wasn’t so angry that they’re drawing funding from the state teat to promote their fantasy world views. Seriously.
As a side note, I want somebody in Outagamie county or Calumet county to go here and order up some free materials. They will only send to their service area, but it would be interesting to see what they’re peddling.
Filed under: Wisconsin Culture, anti insanity, reality check | Tagged: Calumet county, Community Action for Tobacco Free Living, Outagamie county, smoking, tobacco control
I can think of only one example of how they are trying to promote smoking amongst collage students, and that’s all of those R rated smoking movies like Pinocchio and Alice in wonderland.