Tag: Tobacco Free Day

Students Gather At The Capitol To Say No To Tobacco

Keeping kids off of nicotine was the focus of a rally at the state capitol on Jan. 23, 2024.

Students from across the state visited the West Virginia State Capitol for the 20th annual Tobacco Free Day and to represent the state’s youth-led tobacco prevention movement, Raze.

Raze aims to educate the state’s youth about the dangers of tobacco products and empower them with tools and resources to take back their schools and communities.

Ava Johnson, a Raze ambassador from Spring Valley High School in Wayne County, started her Raze crew as a freshman.

“I thought that it’s really important because we have a really big vaping issue in high schools, like it’s super bad,” Johnson said. “So I was really excited. I’ve gotten a lot of people to actually quit around my school, we had about 20 kids per month going to our counselors getting suspensions for it, and now it’s down to about five to 10.”

She said she has helped friends and peers quit vaping and they in turn have helped their families quit.

“So if somebody comes to me with a really bad vaping issue, I normally say to try to start with some nicotine gum or something because it can really help you cut down on the use of vapes in general,” Johnson said. “And then from there, it’s a lot easier to quit, I’ve actually helped a few people at my school quit.”

Raze works with the American Lung Association and Catch My Breath to cut down on vaping rates even on an elementary school level. They are able to use mini-grants from the American Lung Association to cause “commotion” and bring awareness.

“Most people aren’t educated on the bad things about tobacco,” Johnson said. “So we educated a lot of people. I had three people join my Raze crew after we did that. So commotion is just anything that pushes the word of tearing down Big Tobacco lies to the community.”

Johnson said there are 66 Raze crews in 32 of West Virginia’s 55 counties. She hopes to get Raze crews in each county.

“We want to have legislators understand the importance of stopping it earlier on in life,” Johnson said. “So we’re trying to target a lot of high schools and middle schools so that it’s not a big huge pandemic around older generations to come.”

In 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that West Virginia had the highest percentage of youth vaping in the country at nearly 36 percent of high school students.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Charleston Area Medical Center and Marshall Health.

Bill on Local Smoking Restrictions is Rejected in the House

It was Tobacco Free Day at the Legislature, Friday. Coincidentally, the Government Organization Committee held a public hearing about smoking. Currently, a county board of public health passes smoking regulations. House Bill 2208, in its introduced version, would make it so only members of the county commission elected by voters have the power to regulate public smoking.

The bill has since changed and now county commissions could only decide if smoking will be allowed in casinos and video lottery businesses in the county. However, the introduced version stirred up a lot of emotions this morning as almost 30 citizens spoke to the committee.

Only one speaker expressed support for the bill.

Kenny Smith with the American Legion says putting restrictions on veterans who want to be able to go inside certain places and smoke isn’t fair.

“We are obligated to tell a man or a woman serving in the United States services under the age of twenty-one, he may not consume alcohol within our fraternal organizations; however this ship has sailed and it is accepted by this generation. We are now telling these same men and women they no longer enjoy the freedom of smoking within our walls as well,” Smith said, “To this extent, what freedoms will be taken next?”

Donna Gialluco with the Hancock County Health Department couldn’t understand why smoking was not deemed a public health issue in the introduced version of the bill.

Credit Liz McCormick / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting

“Fifty-one years ago, the surgeon general’s report already sounded an alarm saying the dangers of smoking and how bad they are for us. Moving forward, secondhand smoke has also been a leading cause of cancer among non-smokers in particular,” Gialluco noted, “So again, I ask this question of you. How can a legislation define smoking as not a part of public health?”

After the public hearing ended, the Government Organization Committee began to discuss the bill.

Delegate Isaac Sponaugle, a Democrat from Pendleton County, was the first one to point out that members were no longer looking at the introduced version of the bill but instead at a committee substitute.

The committee substitute no longer restricts smoking regulations to only the county commission, but instead makes it so the commission only has authority over regulations at casinos and video lottery sites. The smoking regulations set down already by each county’s public health board would remain the same as before.

Delegate Sponaugle was curious if the county commission even wanted the authority of regulating public smoking at these sites.

Jack Woodrum with the Summers County Commission spoke on behalf of the commission and says there are language issues with the bill that concern him.

The committee continued to discuss the bill questioning counsel and Woodrum on the issues of liability in the current language, of safety, and of health.

But in the end, House Bill 2208 allowing county commissioners to decide if smoking would be permitted at casinos and video lottery establishments was rejected.

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