Teens on front lines of effort to stop youth smoking

KANSAS CITY, Mo.

Sara Barnes and Ben Reine have both seen the ravages of tobacco use -- Barnes when her grandfather suffered from throat cancer and Reine while volunteering at a hospital.

Those experiences led the two Savannah High School students to join a group that teaches elementary school students about the effects of tobacco.

"I've seen what it can do to you, how sick it makes you, how much it costs, just how bad it can affect you," Reine said.

Reine and Barnes, both 18-year-old seniors who have never used tobacco, are among hundreds of Missouri high school students involved in programs across the state designed to convince other students to give up all forms of tobacco, or to never start using it.

The programs are organized and funded by federal, state and local groups. They often focus on schools but can also be found in churches, volunteer organizations and community groups.

In the Savannah program, high school students make presentations to fourth- and fifth-graders and often use unpleasant props to get the message across -- such as explicit pictures of a pickled liver or the amount of phlegm a smoker coughs up in a day.

"They enjoy seeing the gross things," Barnes said. "Plus, I think it really gets the message across."

Kay Cameron, junior-senior counselor at the school, says 28 students are involved in the program. A second program involves about 48 students who discuss drugs and alcohol abuse, which includes tobacco, during a weeklong series of activities.

In Southeast Missouri schools, students learn about the health risks of smoking and the dangers of drugs and alcohol through DARE programs. Area police officers visit classrooms to teach the students lessons on the dangers and risks involved with drugs.

Across the state in northeast Missouri, Joyce Lara coordinates an anti-smoking effort that takes a different approach -- teaching teenagers how to advocate against tobacco use with peers, adults and government leaders.

In Smokebusters, high school students spend three years working to cause a policy change somewhere in their community.

Janet Wilson, head of the health promotion unit for the state health department, said such programs take advantage of the peer pressure so prevalent in middle and high schools.

"When youth get into high school, they have heard and heard and heard about the dangers of smoking," Wilson said. "They best thing to do is to get involved and use the information they've learned in the last eight to nine years. And we know teens like to hear messages from their peers rather than from adults."

Features editor Laura Johnston contributed to this report.