Kids from the Tioga County Council on Alcoholism and Substance Abuse (TCCASA) are holding an event in Owego this Wednesday for national Kick Butts Day. The event is an annual celebration of youth leadership and activism in the fight against tobacco use, sponsored by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

Students in Owego will host an awards banquet to honor youth for writing letters to loved ones encouraging them to quit using tobacco. The event takes place at 5:30pm at 6 McMaster Street, Suite 4 in Owego.

In New York, tobacco use claims 28,200 lives and costs $10.39 billion in health care bills each year. Currently, 7.3 percent of New York’s high school students smoke.

On Kick Butts Day, kids engage in creative events that range from small classroom activities about the harmful ingredients in cigarettes to large rallies at state capitols.

Kids across the country are standing up to the tobacco industry on social media through the #NotAReplacement selfie campaign. The tobacco industry’s own documents reveal that they have long targeted kids as “replacement smokers” for the more than 480,000 people their products kill each year in the United States. Kids are taking selfies to say they’re not a replacement and sharing the photos on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram with the #NotAReplacement hashtag.

Finally a good reason to kick butts. We salute Owego students today who want to make a difference.

 

 

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