Tri-county officials announce ‘Taking Down Tobacco’ campaign
MARYLAND – Local county health departments have teamed up with schools in an effort to raise awareness with their ‘Take Down Tobacco’ initiative.
But it’s not just high schools that have seen increased use of nicotine products. Salisbury University student Cristina Drecchio said that these days, vapes and tobacco products can be hard to get away from on campus: “It’s everywhere. Wherever you look, a lot of people are doing it…I would say about like 60% of people are using it on campus. And I have seen it in classrooms, which is completely new.”
In Maryland, the legal age to purchase tobacco and nicotine products is 21, but that often doesn’t stop kids from getting their hands on them anyway. Somerset County Health Educator Alyssa Weston said that even high school students are able to get them, noting that she’s seen a significant increase in use since 2020: “It’s everyone. It’s student athletes. It’s your honor roll student. It’s also your students struggling, the ones not getting the best grades, the ones getting in trouble…but now it’s [also] your star students, the ones you wouldn’t even expect.” Weston continued, “You would think that any high schooler wouldn’t be able to get their hands on these products. And there are some students that will tell me flat out that they know where they can go, that will sell to them.
Weston said that drawing parallels with the past helps her explain the health risks to students, including the fact that we still don’t have a full picture of what vaping does to your body. “I always say to my students, when your your parents were growing up, your grandparents were growing up, smoking was very common. And now we realize that smoking can lead to things like lung cancer, emphysema, COPD.”
In an effort to raise awareness of the dangers of tobacco products and keep kids healthy, the Somerset, Wicomico, and Worcester county health departments have joined forces for a month long ‘Take Down Tobacco’ campaign. As part of the initiative, they had students from local schools film a promotional video.
“So we’ve involved our local youth from the Tri-County area. They were filmed, they had a script and they were able to take a stand against vaping. So they talk about the harms of vaping, how they’re saying no to tobacco. And then we’ve shown the videos in the schools and the students are really excited to see their friends…sometimes it’s hard to get youth engaged to watch even a 60 second clip. But ‘I know her!’ and ‘I know that school!’ gets them a little bit more engaged,” Weston said.
