Cigarette use in county's youth above the average

According to the Indiana Prevention Resource Center's 2008 survey of school students, Montgomery County students in grades 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 12 reported above state average use of cigarettes - making it about one in every five students in these grades that smoked on a regular basis. While the state's youth tobacco use rates have been on the decline between 2003-2008, use of cigarettes is still a significant issue for Hoosier teens.

Studies have shown that younger a person is when they become addicted to the drug nicotine, the more difficulty they will have quitting smoking. Among American adults, cigarette use kills over 400,000 people from a variety of cancer and other chronic diseases. Indiana ranks second in the nation for adult cigarette use and Montgomery County has one of the higher rates in the state at approximately 30 percent.

There have been other research findings that show that the younger a person is when they use tobacco, the more likely they are to use alcohol, marijuana and other drugs. Cigarette use takes its toll on the young person's physical and mental health. Experimenting with cigarettes can easily lead to addiction, which will present a life-long burden on the user's health and finances.

Project Toward No Tobacco (TNT) is an evidence-based curriculum that seeks to prevent tobacco use in young people; particularly those aged 10-14. The program is designed to counteract several different causes of tobacco use by young people.

The AHEAD Coalition has adopted Project TNT and will be working with each school corporation over the next few months to deliver the program. Project TNT is a class-room based program that consists of 10 core lessons and two booster sessions. The sessions are no more than 50 minutes long and use a wide range of teaching approaches to engage students.

"Preventing first use of tobacco by young people is most important, because once young people begin smoking they are unlikely to stop," said AHEAD Program Manager Liz Thompson. "All educators can play a positive role in prevention.'

Thompson has worked with each corporation to put implement Project TNT with sixth and eighth grade students; as well as any other students who may be identified as high risk for tobacco use. Thompson will be administering the program as well as training school staff to deliver it in future years. In addition to this curriculum, Thompson is also certified to offer Tobacco Addiction Program (TAP) which helps individuals under the age of 18 quit smoking.

Activities in Project TNT include games, videos, role-plays, large and small group discussion, use of student worksheets, homework assignments, activism letter writing, and a videotaping project. Student participants will be evaluated by pre- and post-test measures to determine what they have learned from the program. The evidence of a reduced youth smoking rate as a result of the program will hopefully be seen in future IPRC student self reports.

The theory underlying project TNT is that youth will best be able to resist using tobacco products if they (1) are aware of misleading social information that facilitates tobacco use (e.g., pro-tobacco advertising, inflated estimates of the prevalence of tobacco use); (2) have skills that counteract the social pressures to achieve approval by using tobacco; and (3) appreciate the physical consequences that tobacco use may have on their own lives. These are all emphasized in Project TNT.