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July 2016 Volume 5, Issue 7

A Closer Lo k Inside This Issue:

This July, Gain Freedom From Tobacco Use

1

Point of Sale (POS) Tobacco

Marketing Community Training

Event

2

The Corning Palace Theatre

Adopts a Smoke Free Media

Policy

3

2016 NYS Reality Check Youth

Summit

3

* Contact STTAC and get FREE

signage for your worksite when

you develop a new tobacco-free

grounds or entryway policy for

your business, while supplies last!

a healthy bottom line

STTAC Staff:

Stacy Hills, MS, MCHES STTAC Director shills@co.chemung.ny.us

Sarah Robbins, BS

Reality Check Coordinator

sarahrobbins@co.chemung.ny.us

Teresa Matterazzo, MS

Community Engagement Coordinator

tmatterazzo@co.chemung.ny.us

McKenzie Richardson, AS

Program Assistant

mrichardson@co.chemung.ny.us

This July, Gain Freedom From Tobacco Use

Take action today to declare your independ-ence from tobacco use. Resources are available to help you quit tobacco use and enjoy a fuller, healthier life.

Why not use this July as an opportunity to declare your independence from tobacco use and live a fuller, healthier life? The Centers for Disease Con-trol and Prevention’s (CDC’s) national tobacco education campaign, Tips From Former Smokers, which features real people who are living with the health consequences caused by smoking, shows how dramatically smoking can affect one’s inde-pendence and quality of life.

Stories from Tips participants also demonstrate firsthand how quitting smoking can improve one’s quality of life, help avoid life-altering illnesses, and help regain personal independence.

Tobacco Products Are Designed for Addiction

The design and contents of tobacco products make them addictive, and cigarettes deliver more nicotine and deliver it quicker than ever before. Filtered cigarettes are every bit as addictive and are no safer than other cigarettes. Youth are more sensitive to nicotine and can become dependent earlier than adults. Because of their addiction, about three out of four teen smokers end up smoking into adulthood, even if they intend to quit after a few years. That’s not all:

The design and contents of tobacco products

make them more attractive and addictive than ever before. For instance, cigarettes today deliver nicotine more quickly from the lungs to the heart and brain.

While nicotine is the key chemical compound that causes and sustains the powerful addict-ing effects of cigarettes, other ingredients and design features make them even more attrac-tive and more addictive.

The powerful addicting contents of tobacco

products affect reward centers in the brain.

Evidence suggests that psychosocial, biologic, and genetic factors may also play a role in tobacco addiction.

Adolescents’ bodies are more sensitive to nicotine, and adolescents are more easily ad-dicted than adults. This helps explain why about 1,000 teenagers become daily smokers every day.

The only proven strategy for reducing the risk of smoking-related disease and death is to never smoke, and if you do smoke, to quit.

Quitting at any age and at any time is benefi-cial. It's never too late to quit, but the sooner the better.

Quitting gives your body a chance to heal the damage caused by smoking.

When smokers quit, the risk for a heart attack drops sharply after just 1 year; stroke risk can fall to about the same as a nonsmoker’s after 2-5 years; risks for cancer of the mouth, throat, esophagus, and bladder are cut in half after 5 years; and the risk for dying of lung cancer drops by half after 10 years.

Smokers often make several attempts before they are able to quit, but new strategies for cessation, including nicotine replacement and non-nicotine medications, can make it easier.

Talk to your doctor or call 1-800-QUIT-NOW for free quitting help and to get started on a quit plan today. You can also call the NYS Quitline at 1-866-NY-QUITS and you may be able to get 2 weeks of free nicotine replacement patches.

Source: http://www.cdc.gov/features/SmokingIndependence/

Point of Sale (POS) Tobacco Marketing

Community Training Event

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Chemung, Schuyler, and Steuben Counties,

New York – 90% of smokers start before the age

of 18, and in NYS 22,500 youth become new daily

smokers each year. Studies show that tobacco

product marketing at the point-of-sale (POS) pro-

vides cues to smoking, influences smoking initia-

tion, and stimulates purchasing among smokers

trying to quit (1,2,3). Youth who visit convenience

stores more than twice a week are 64% more likely

to begin smoking within the next twelve months

than their peers who visit convenience stores less

than once per week(4). Youth are about twice as

likely to remember tobacco marketing as adults,

and there is about one licensed tobacco retailer for

every 194 children in NYS (5).These statistics

show the heavy impact on youth placed by the

tobacco industry. Big Tobacco companies know

youth are vital to the continuation of their busi-

ness, so they practice tactics that target them. To-

bacco companies place most of their advertising

where young people shop, such as in convenience

stores, where 75% of teens shop at least once per

week (6). They spend approximately $.5 million

per day in NYS to market their products, and of

their total annual marketing budget, spend 90% of

it ($10.49 billion) in the retail environment (7). The

more tobacco retailers there are the more easily

accessible and socially accepted tobacco becomes.

The Southern Tier Tobacco Awareness Coalition

held a community training event on Thursday,

June 2nd in celebration of World No Tobacco

Day. The event was held to identify how Big To-

bacco companies are targeting our youth and to

outline ways to combat this influence. At the train-

ing, community members heard from a representa-

tive from the NYS Health Department who had a

history with Big Tobacco. This representative pro-

vided insight into the strategies and tactics of their

continued business. Reality Check youth were also

present to unveil impactful and provocative visuals

to identify the tobacco problem in our community

and to motivate others to spread awareness.

To learn more about the issue you can visit

STTAC.org or seenenoughtobacco.org.

Exposing Big Tobacco

Sources:

1 International Communications Research. National Telephone Survey of Teens Aged 12 to 17. 2007

2 National Cancer Institute. “The role of media in promoting and reducing tobacco use”. NIH publication no. 07‐6242 (2008)

3 Wakefield, Germain, et al. “An experimental study of effects on schoolchildren of exposure to point‐of‐sale cigarette advertising and pack displays.” Health Education Research Theory and Practice. 21(3):338‐347 (2006)

4 Lisa Henriksen, Nina C. Schleicher, Ellen C Feighery and Stephen P. Fortmann. Pediatrics published online July 19, 2010. DOI: 10.1542/peds.2009‐3021

5 Feighery et al. The 1999 Annual Report of the Promotion Industry, a PROMO Magazine Special Report.

6 Feighery et al. The 1999 Annual Report of the Promotion Industry, a PROMO Magazine Special Report.

7 U.S. federal Trade Commission. Cigarette Report for 2007 and 2008 (2011). http://ftc.gov/os/2011/07/110729cigarettereport.pdf

VISIT SEENENOUGHTOBACCO.ORG

IF YOU AGREE IT’S

TIME TO DRAW THE LINE.

The Southern Tier Tobacco Awareness Coalition (STTAC) seeks to build healthier communities through tobacco free living in Chemung, Schuyler & Steuben, NY.

STTAC has 4 initiatives:

To reduce the impact of retail tobacco product marketing on youth, Point-of Sale (POS).

To increase the number of To-bacco Free Outdoor (TFO) policies, this includes tobacco free worksites, parks, vehicles, entryways and other public out-door areas.

To increase the number of smoke-free multi-unit housing (SF-MUH) policies.

Eliminate pro-tobacco imagery from youth-rated movies and the internet, Smoke-Free Media (SFM).

Physical & Mailing Address:

103 Washington Street Elmira, NY 14901

Office Phone numbers:

Main Line: 607-737-2858

Director: 737-2028 ext.73482

Reality Check Coordinator: 737-2028 ext.73480

Community Engagement Coordinator: 737-2028 ext.73483

Program Assistant: 737-2028 ext.73481

We’re on the Web, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube! www.sttac.org www.facebook/sttac www.twitter/sttacny www.youtube/sttacny

STTAC Contact Information:

3

The Corning Palace Theatre Adopts a Smoke-Free Media Policy

In May, the Corning Palace Theatre signed a

smoke-free policy in order to protect local youth

from tobacco imagery and brand identification

in the media. The theater pledged to not accept

tobacco or e-cigarette advertising and run a

tobacco prevention PSA prior to showing

youth-rated films. Additionally, they will run

PSA’s provided by STTAC on tobacco

prevention holidays such as the International

Week of Action and Kick Butts Day.

Did you know kids whose favorite actors have

smoked in three or more of their recent films

are sixteen times more likely to feel positively

about smoking — making them much more

likely to start smoking themselves?1

Kids 10-14 who see the most smoking on screen

are nearly three times more likely to start

smoking than kids who see the least. There is a

direct relationship between kids’ exposure and

how many of them start to smoke: the more on-

screen smoking they see, the more likely they

will smoke. The less they see, the less likely they

will smoke.2

By signing this policy, the Corning Palace

Theatre is reducing the impact of tobacco im-

agery on youth in our area.

If you know of any media companies who may

be interested in adopting a policy, contact our

Reality Check coordinator at 607-737-2858.

For more information on this initiative visit the

Reality Check website:

www.realitycheckofny.com/smoke-free-media

Sources: 1Tickle JJ, Sargent JD et al. Favorite movie stars, their tobacco use in

contemporary films, and its association with adolescent smoking. Tobac-

co Control. 2000;10:16-22. 2Sargent JD, Beach ML et al. Exposure to movie smoking: its rela-

tion to smoking

initiation among US adolescents. Pediatrics 2005:116(5):1183-91. 3Glantz, SA. Smoking in movies: A major problem and a real solu-

tion. The Lancet. 2003:362(9380):281-285.

2016 NYS Reality Check Youth Summit

Every year in July, Reality Check youth from

across New York State gather at a college cam-

pus for 3 days and 2 nights for the Reality Check

Youth Summit.

Teens at the Youth Summit will use the passion

and ideas from their local Reality Check group to

help shape and inspire the statewide movement

toward a tobacco-free generation. Teens are

working together to advance their vision to end

what the U.S. Surgeon General has called a

“pediatric epidemic”.1

The theme for the 2016 summit is “ iAM Build-

ing a Tobacco Free Generation”. Workshops will

bring forth the personal skills and talents each

teen possesses to help them grow as a leader

within their community. Youth will also get

hands on knowledge for creating impactful

tobacco awareness events.

This year there will be 6 local youth from

Chemung, Schuyler, and Steuben counties at-

tending. To help build momentum for Youth

Summit 2016, the Reality Check Facebook page

has been posting videos of Reality Check youth

making “iAM” statements. Check them out at:

www.facebook.com/realitycheckofny

Source: 1U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Health Consequences of Smoking: 50 Years of Progress. A Report of the Surgeon General. 2014.