MANSFIELD — Community Action for Capable Youth featured anti-smoking artwork from more than 60 Richland County-area students Wednesday night at the Mansfield Art Center as part of its fifth-annual Kick Butts Day.
CACY is an organization focused on the prevention of violence, drug, alcohol, tobacco and gambling abuse. The Kick Butts Day art show was open to all third through 12th grade students in the county.
CACY staged the event to counter the $430.8 million advertisement campaign of the tobacco industry, which the organization said leads to the deaths of nearly 400,000 smokers annually in the United States.
“CACY has participated in the national campaign, Kick Butts Day, held throughout America,” Tracee Anderson, Director of CACY, told those in attendance. “This national effort is to encourage youth and their families to reject tobacco marketing and to stay cigarette free.”
Tobacco, found in cigarettes, cigars, hookah, pipes and smokeless tobacco products, is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, she said. In turn, more than $133 billion is spent on health care and nearly $155 billion in lost productivity each year.
Anderson said comparatively, Richland County’s youth smoke less than many other Ohio counties. The 2011 Richland County Community Health Assessment found 10 percent of Richland County youth (age 12 to 17) considered themselves to be smokers compared to a state average of 21.1 percent of Ohio youth considering themselves to be smokers.
“Overall, six percent of Richland County youth indicated they had used tobacco in the last month,” she said. “Of those youth, 46 percent say they have tried to quit,” Anderson said exemplifying the power of addiction.
Dallas Smith, a junior at Mansfield Senior High School and second-place winner of the High School-aged art contest said the inspiration for his artwork came from his family, who are mostly smokers.
“I just thought about what all is entailed with cigarettes,” he said of his painting with three gravestones amid the smoke of a lonely cigarette. “Since my dad smokes and most of my family smokes, I figured we’re all going to die anyway. But cigarettes were probably the cause of the death (of his loved ones).
“(Smoking) is a bad habit to get into; some of my friends do it too.”
He noted he’s been able to stay away from the habit by playing sports.
Anderson said as generations get smarter about tobacco products, less youth begin smoking, but the tobacco industry has created new ways to sell their products, evoking excitement and trends which can be hard for the younger generations to ignore.
“Tobacco use is at a 50 percent rate to what we were at 50 years ago,” she said. “But the problem is the tobacco industry has added electronic cigarettes and hookahs.”
Anderson said Kick Butts Day is an active youth campaign which could have an impact on the students’ families as well as the artists.
“This activity helps with that because it’s kids who have a message to other people, not just their own peers but to their families,” Anderson said. “The number one reason why family members quit is because their child asks them to quit.”
