Southwest High students promote health, share dangers of tobacco

In an effort to expose the dangers of tobacco to their school and community, the Southwest Academy for Careers in Health Science celebrated Kick Butts Day at Southwest High School here Tuesday.

The day is celebrated across the country and aims to educate and deter the use of tobacco in the nation’s youths.

To help illustrate the dangers of tobacco, students creatively displayed various facts and figures related to tobacco use outside of their classroom for all to see.

Eddie Mejorado, a 16-year-old Southwest High junior, said he had the task of collecting cigarette butts from the various parks around his community and placing them in jars.

“We stopped counting after we found about 500 in just a few hours,” Eddie said.

In his search for cigarette butts, Eddie said he was disturbed to find them in community areas such as parks and outside of grocery stores.

“We found most of them just lying around on the sidewalk,” he said. “Little kids could have picked them up. Smoking not only hurts the person doing it, but others in the community and the environment, too.”

Michelle Lopez said she felt it was important to celebrate tobacco awareness due to the amount of asthma sufferers in Imperial County.

“The thing that stood out to me the most when I was looking up tobacco facts is that 1,200 people die from tobacco-related deaths each day,” Michelle, a 16-year-old Southwest High junior, said. “That’s a lot of people.”

Maria Hernandez said she felt the tobacco industry aimed to attract all consumers regardless of age.

“They make it look attractive for every age group,” Maria, a 16-year-old Southwest High junior said. “They are shortening peoples’ lives because of it.”

In addition to being a chance to educate the community, the event was also a learning experience for the students, said Jackie Valadez, Southwest High teacher.

“This helps the students learn medical terminology and how tobacco affects the respiratory system,” Valadez said. “We had an event like this last year, but not at this level. We definitely want to see it continue to grow.”

Staff Writer Karina Lopez can be reached at 760-337-3439 or klopez@ivpressonline.com

By the numbers

Cigarettes:

800 million; the number of cigarette packets consumed by kids yearly in the U.S.

76.6 million; the number of cigarette packets consumed by kids yearly in California

3.4 million; number of high schoolers who smoke in the U.S.

304,000 number of high schoolers who smoke in California

3.2 million; number of children ages 3-19 who are exposed to second-hand smoke in the U.S.

Source kicksbuttsday.org