Students try to snuff out smoking

Today is "No Tobacco Day"

MOSES LAKE — A group of students at Columbia Basin Secondary School joined together to stop future cigarette smokers from starting.

The students are members of Teens Against Tobacco Use, a program through the American Lung Association. They conducted presentations this year at six elementary schools in Moses Lake, warning 227 fifth grade students about the dangers of tobacco.

Children saw the difference between a healthy lung and a cancerous smoker's lung when they looked at and touched pig lungs. One pig lung was a healthy pink. The other lung was black to simulate a smoker with cancer.

Today is World No Tobacco Day. Supported by the World Health Organization, the theme for 2007 is "smoke-free environments."

Every student had a different reason for joining Teens Against Tobacco Use.

"I did it because I watched my grandma die from smoking," said junior Marissa Spytex, 17.

Her grandmother was 13 when she started smoking. Even while her grandmother needed an oxygen tank, she continued to smoke cigarettes.

"My grandma died from lung cancer," echoed junior Alicia Curtiss, 17.

Freshman Ashlin Hindman, 16, said both her parents are smokers. They both have skin cancer. Her grandfather has skin and lung cancer. In 2005, her grandma died of lung cancer.

"I started (Teens Against Tobacco Use) because 90 percent of my family smokes and I don't want to follow in their footsteps," said freshman Mercedes Martin, 15.

Eighth grade student Alice Pruneda, 14, said her family members smoke. Her grandmother had two heart attacks and doctors said the heart attacks were caused by smoking, Pruneda said.

Eighth-grade student Makayla Tudor, 14, said she joined the group because she has fun and enjoys working with the children.

In addition to looking at pig lungs, the fifth grade students breathed through a small straw to symbolize breathing with emphysema, sang while running in place, and looked at a jar of molasses representing the amount of tar in someone's lung after smoking a pack of cigarettes each day for a year.

The students come up with ways to stay away from cigarette smoke.

Student Assistance Specialist Kathi Uhlinger said the teaching is effective because it is taught by teens rather than adults. Uhlinger, 44, quit smoking 13 years ago. She started when she was 18 years old because a boyfriend smoked.

Spytex said she was first offered a cigarette in third grade, and she took it. She wished a similar program was available to her at the time.

"I wish I had somebody that would have done that for me," she said.

This is the second year the program has existed at Columbia Basin Secondary School.

Spytex wanted people to think about how their smoking affects other people in their lives.

Pruneda offered additional advice: "If you're smoking, quit," she said.