Students Meet for Anti-Smoking Drive

About 25 Asian and Latino student leaders from throughout the county met Monday in Santa Ana to develop anti-smoking campaigns for their ethnic communities.

The meeting kicked off a seven-month, $15,000 program designed to have students create and spread their own anti-smoking messages.

Officials for Hands Across the Campus, a student leadership organization that originated the state-funded program, said they hoped the messages created by the students would be more effective than traditional media campaigns.

“It’s not adults telling kids what to do. It’s kids telling adults what to do,” project administrator Jim Walker said. He said the youngsters will be attempting to bridge language barriers that often have insulated people in their ethnic group from English-language campaigns.

During the six-hour meeting, the students discussed how advertising may entice minors to use tobacco. They also learned about the dangers cigarettes pose not only to the people who smoke but their families as well.

“I was amazed when they told me that 400,000 people die” each year from smoking-related illnesses, said Martha Romero, 16, of Garden Grove. “That’s more than alcohol, illegal drug use and gang violence put together.”

Martha, a sophomore at Rancho Alamitos High School in Garden Grove, said she hoped the program would help discourage minors from starting smoking and help smokers to quit.

For future meetings, the students plan to devise strategies for disseminating information, possibly through methods such as public service announcements and anti-smoking workshops.

Tipatat Chennavasin, 15, of Santa Ana praised the program because it taught Asian and Latino students to respect each other’s cultures and work toward a common goal.

He added: “It’s not just about tobacco; it’s about minority youth getting together to learn to get along and do good.”