The photographs show brightly colored cans of spearmint-flavored dipping tobacco, packages of grape cigars and pouches of peach-flavored smokeless "snus" tobacco.
Photographed by area high school students in the Students Working Against Tobacco program, these pictures lining the hall of Santa Fe College's Blount Center are part of the "Sweet Deception" art show launched to raise awareness about the marketing of candy-flavored tobacco products to children.
The local campaign against those candy-flavored tobacco products may soon intensify.
On Monday, the Alachua County Health Department's state-funded Tobacco Free Alachua program will begin meetings of a task force formed specifically to target the flavored tobacco products. An email from Tobacco Free Alachua said the task force will "explore potential policy options" in "limiting or restricting the sale of candy-flavored tobacco" locally.
"They are very much targeted at youth," Marilyn Headley, the membership director for Tobacco Free Alachua, said of the products.
The 2010 Florida Youth Tobacco Survey showed that 7.1 percent of middle school students and 21.1 percent of high school students had smoked a flavored cigar.
A 2009 federal law banned candy- and fruit-flavored cigarettes, but it did not apply to other tobacco products.
Headley said that, with the task force meetings just starting, it remains to be seen if the end result will be a campaign urging Gainesville and Alachua County commissioners to pass ordinances banning the sale of the flavored tobacco products.
Комментариев нет:
Отправить комментарий