World No Tobacco Day

By Charles Sandefur

We don’t like to think about our children dying, but if current trends continue, more than five million children alive today in the United States will die much sooner than they should. Why? Because they began smoking cigarettes or using other tobacco products while still in their teens, sometimes even younger.

The raw truth is that the tobacco industry desperately wants—even needs—our children to use tobacco, and they are willing to do almost anything to encourage teenagers and pre-teens to start smoking. To hook young people on cigarettes, tobacco companies are resorting to aggressive and misleading marketing strategies, appealing to kids’ taste for sweets with such enticing products as chocolate-, fruit-, and candy-flavored cigarettes.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is also concerned about this disturbing marketing trend. Each year on May 31, WHO sponsors World No Tobacco Day (WNTD), a day created to increase awareness of tobacco’s deadly effects and to encourage governments to impose regulations on tobacco products.

WHO has chosen “Tobacco: Deadly in any form or disguise” as the slogan for WNTD 2006. By exposing the true, harmful nature of tobacco, no matter how it’s packaged, WNTD 2006 hopes to educate and empower adults and children around the world to stop smoking or never begin at all.

How can we stop this subversive attack on our children? The first step is for you and your community to join ADRA in commemorating World No Tobacco Day on Wednesday, May 31, 2006. We make a difference by doing simple, yet effective things to jump-start the fight against the tobacco industry, saving one child at a time.

Individuals, churches, and schools can celebrate WNTD by:

Post the poster in a prominent place in your church or school. ADRA will gladly provide you with posters. To request extra copies, call 1.800.424.ADRA (2372).

Read the pulpit announcement on Sabbath, May 27, and/or printing it in your church bulletin.

Having an honest, straightforward conversation with your children about the dangers of smoking, emphasizing that all tobacco products—no matter the form or flavor are harmful. Children armed with the facts about tobacco (and who know their parents care if they smoke or not) are less likely to pick up that first cigarette.

Organizing school-wide drawing contests where elementary students create their own anti-smoking posters illustrating the WNTD slogan, “Tobacco: Deadly in any form or disguise,” and decorating classrooms with students’ entries.

Asking someone to give a speech, workshop, or seminar at your church youth group and/or school assembly on the health effects of tobacco use.

Asking someone who has struggled with tobacco addiction (or someone who has lost a loved one to tobacco-related disease) to share their testimony of its impact on their health, family, and economics.

Writing a letter or editorial to your local newspaper about youth and tobacco.

ADRA is proud to participate in this annual, worldwide commemoration organized by the World Health Organization. We simply cannot, as concerned adults, stand by and let the tobacco industry lead our youth toward early deaths. We must take action to help ensure a healthy, tobacco-free future for generations to come.

Whatever you do, please decide to do something. Millions of children’s lives hang in the balance. With your partnership and participation, ADRA can do more to prevent these needless deaths.

Resources to Download.

For additional, FREE copies of ADRA’s World No Tobacco Day 2006 poster or The Original Really Useful Gift Catalog to distribute in your church or school, please call 1.800.424.ADRA (2372).

[Source: A letter from Charles Sandefur, President of ADRA (Adventist Development & Relief Agency International), May 3, 2006.]