PSD Awarded $300,000 Tobacco Prevention Grant

PSD’s efforts to keep teenagers from smoking is getting a $300,000 grant to focus on students in junior high.

PSD Student Assistance Services was recently awarded a 3-year Tobacco Prevention Initiative grant from the Colorado Department of Health and Environment. April Stutters, prevention specialist, said goals of the grant include: Help 100% of the schools comply with and enforce tobacco prevention policies and regulations.

• Integrate tobacco prevention into the 7^th grade health program, using research-based prevention curriculum.
• Start school-wide social marketing campaigns in 4 junior highs that focus on social influences like the media, peers and family.
• Create and maintain community-based tobacco prevention activities and events for youth.

Other one-year tobacco prevention projects funded include:

• RECOGNIZE: A Social Norms Approach to Tobacco Prevention, Bill Peisner, Wellington Junior High - $5,694
• Comprehensive Tobacco Plan, Mike Roberts, Centennial High School - $9,372
• “It’s all Good in the Neighborhood” Tobacco Prevention Project, Brad Stone and David Linehan, Blevins Junior High - $5,308

The Tobacco Prevention Initiative is funded by tax initiated on tobacco products due to passage of Amendment 35 in 2005.

Important statistics regarding youth and tobacco (provided by the Rocky Mountain Center for Health and Promotion and the American Lung Association):

• One third of all smokers had their first cigarette by the age of 14.
• Twenty-five percent of high school students in Colorado smoke.
• 8,300 young people in the Colorado become new smokers each year.

For more information contact April Stutters, prevention specialist, at 567-1449.