Two Houma/Thibodaux groups awarded grants to help youths avoid cigarettes

Beacon Light Baptist Church of Houma and the START Corporation have been awarded grants to support MediaSharp, a media literacy program for middle- and high-school aged students aimed at focusing on ways the tobacco industry targets teens.

The grant, among 21 Community Program Grants awarded by the Louisiana Campaign for Tobacco-Free Living (TFL), is intended to help students reject marketing tactics and media messages, said Tante Chatman, Thibodaux area regional coordinator for TFL’s Louisiana campaign.

“Through TFL’s Community Program Grant partners, we are educating Louisiana youth on the health consequences of tobacco use and bringing attention to Big Tobacco’s deceptive tactics designed to get youth hooked,” Chatman said.

Both Beacon Light and START will support the statewide tobacco control and prevention movement by promoting cessation services and smoking control awareness events.

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids estimates that tobacco companies spend approximately $291.5 million on marketing annually in Louisiana, Chatman said. The majority of that budget is spent on marketing in retail outlets on colorful ads, gifts with purchase and discounts that make smoking products more affordable and attractive to youngsters, she added.

According to a study published in the May 2007 issue of the scientific journal Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, the more cigarette marketing teens are exposed to in retail stores, the more likely they are to smoke.

“The MediaSharp program empowers kids to reject tobacco industry marketing tactics and make the choice not to start smoking, or to quit. We can reduce death and disease caused by tobacco use if we prevent young people from starting to use tobacco in the first place,” Chatman said.

The state’s Campaign for Tobacco-Free Living estimates that 25 percent of high school students in Louisiana smoke. And according to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids estimates 6,900 youths statewide take up the habit yearly and more than 109,000 Bayou State youngsters under age 18 will ultimately die prematurely from smoking and smoking-related diseases.

“Community Program Grants are part of TFL’s broad reaching effort to help communities reduce the toll of tobacco use,” said Dr. Charles Brown, chairman of the TFL Steering Committee. “By engaging partners at the regional level, we can raise awareness of the health effects of secondhand smoke, reduce youth initiation of tobacco use, and ultimately, save lives.”

For more information, contact Chatman at (985) 447-0916, extension 350, or by e-mail at tchatman@lphi.org.