National
 
CDC’s National Youth Tobacco Survey
The CDC’s National Youth Tobacco Survey found that tobacco use among adolescents has stopped decreasing; rates remain stable from the last NYTS of 2002. Middle school students had a decrease in pipe use only. Overall tobacco use was 13.3% in 2002 and had a non-significant change to 11.7%. Overall smoking in high school students remained steady at 28%. A marked decrease in use of all tobacco products was noted in non-Hispanic blacks, with the rate declining from 21.7% to 17.1%. Other notable changes include the exposure teens have to tobacco products through the media – both high school and middle school age students reported seeing fewer actors smoking in movies and on television. Exposure to tobacco advertising on the internet for middle school students was about 34%, while high school students had a slightly higher rate of 39% (a significant increase from 2002). No significant changes occurred in the frequency of students being asked for age identification when purchasing tobacco products, nor was there a change in being sold cigarettes despite underage status. The CDC released results of their 2004 National Youth Tobacco survey in the April 1, 2005 edition of the MMWR:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5412a1.htm

American Legacy Foundation’s truth® campaign
A report in the March edition of the American Journal of Public Health credits the American Legacy Foundation’s truth® campaign with significantly contributing to the decline in youth smoking. The study indicates a dose-response relationship between amount of exposure to truth campaign advertisements and likelihood of being a smoker. Between 1997 and 2002, youth smoking rates decreased from 28% to 18%, as indicated by the Monitoring the Future Survey of 8th, 10th and 12th grade students. Twenty-two percent of the overall decline was attributed to the truth® campaign. This translates to preventing approximately 300,000 youth from smoking. Please see the following link for more information on the truth campaign or this study.
http://www.americanlegacy.org/americanlegacy/skins/alf/display.aspx?
CategoryID=6e41427f-dce1-496b-9b82-cd4f7ec31223&ObjectID=
173ad2da-9171-4e39-8a7b-63b7b7928a97&Action=display_user_
object&Mode= user&ModuleID=ad3a024a-b2d6-4593-874f-9b66136bc614

Kick Butts Day
The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids sponsored Kick Butts Day on April 13th. The national spokesperson for the event was Natalie Coughlin, Olympic Swimming Gold Medalist. The day encouraged schools and youth organizations to get involved in eliminating youth smoking. Events ranged from discussions on the tobacco industry marketing tactics to signing pledges to not smoke. Find updates and information on Kick Butts Day at the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids website: http://www.tobaccofreekids.org.

States

California: The Thumbs Up! Thumbs Down! Program, founded by the American Lung Association of Sacramento-Emigrant Trails, trains teens to assess movies based on their glamorization of tobacco and smoking. The group maintains a database on smoking in movies. Over the past two years, 80% of all PG-13 rated movies reviewed, showed at least one incident of smoking, with almost 80% of those portraying smoking as cool, relaxing or rebellious. Recent noteworthy movies include: a Thumbs Up! going to Mean Girls and a Thumbs Down! for Anchorman. The Thumbs Up! Thumbs Down! website is at http://www.saclung.org/thumbs

The San Francisco Park Commission has banned the use of smokeless tobacco in all public parks and at all youth-focused events sponsored by the city. The policy was created in response to the statistic that over 900,000 youth try smokeless tobacco each year in the USA. For more information on the ban, please go to:
http://www.kcbs.com/pages/kcbs/news/news_story.nsp?story_id=67920933

Virginia: Researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University are looking into older peer influence as an anti- smoking intervention. A current study involves measuring the influence of high school students on middle school students in keeping them from trying tobacco. The study is based on data indicating that many students experiment with tobacco in the 6th and 7th grades. In the project, which began in February, high school students lead workshops on the history of tobacco, the effects of tobacco, and the tobacco industry’s advertising and strategies. The research is sponsored by Virginia’s national tobacco settlement fund. Virginia’s use of the tobacco settlement fund has been rather successful in decreasing smoking rates for teens. The initiation of tobacco programming in the state occurred in 2002, and an 8% decline (from 29% to 21%) in rates of smoking among high school students was observed from 2001 to 2003. Over the same time frame, the middle school rate dropped from 11% to 6%. More information can be found at:
http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD/MGArticle/RTD_
BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031780674195&path=!business&s=
1045855934855

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