Posted on 08/06/2006 11:03:32 PM PDT by at bay
Not many know Debi Austin by name. But it's hard to shake the image of her in the public service announcement where she takes a drag from a cigarette through a hole in her throat. The Stanislaus County Office of Education is counting on Austin, a longtime smoker who had her larynx removed because of cancer, to deter local students from using tobacco.
"It's amazing how many of our young people are smoking," prevention director Vicki Bauman said.
"They're resilient and they think they're untouchable. Sometimes you have to use the shock factor."
Thursday, nearly $330,000 in tax money from cigarette sales filtered down to the county office of education for anti-smoking education.
Statewide, nearly $10 million in Tobacco-Use Prevention Education money was given out to 42local education agencies.
Other local recipients included the Tuolumne County SuperintendentofSchools office, which received nearly $130,000, and Manteca Unified School District, which received more than $37,000.
Schools get $90,000 grant
Bauman said four county junior high schools earned a share in a separate, one-time $90,000 grant for prevention efforts. At least 50 percent of students at those schools said they were thinking about smoking or were smokers, according to a California Healthy Kids Survey during the 2004-2005 school year.
At the junior high and high school levels, Bauman said, prevention efforts include speakers such as Austin and field trips to local hospitals to visit patients with emphysema and severe asthma. Peer groups also are formed to help kids quit smoking, she said.
Bauman said there is a trend of young girls becoming smokers to curb their appetites and lose weight.
To try to change their minds, the girls' photos are put into a computer and age-progressed to show the effects of smoking for 10 or 20 years, Bauman said.
(Excerpt) Read more at modbee.com ...
Tell you what, put your smokes down for one week and I will apologize profusely to you. You will then be able to prove without a doubt I am full of it. Until then, you are addicted and in deep denial.
You are the personification of the reason why freedom-hating antis cannot be appeased. It is time to stop negotiating with people like you and start fighting back. At the very least, it is certainly time to defy your laws and expose you for the pro-government enablers that you are.
anytown city council USA:
"O.K., we've heard from many young people taking jobs in a town with limited jobs, that forces them into contact with smoke. The surgeon general's findings are clear. We've also heard testimony from a gentleman named At Bay that proves once the smoke clears, the bars in Salinas are busier than ever. We've heard from more than a few militant smokers, and some business owners with concerns. You elected us, we decide. All those in favor? 5 Opposed no one. The ban takes place next month, but the ban on smoking in government buildings remains. You sir, in the back. Why are you smoking?"
"I will defy your law and that of all the "antis" I call'em. Yeah, that's the ticket, you're all anti-me! Why's everybody picking on me?"
"Seargent-at-arms, take this looney into custody. Good luck to you sir, there's not a jail in this country that allows smoking anymore."
So what?
You've been posting for several years now through a hole in your head.
You're exactly the type of person the Founders had in mind when they rejected a pure democracy (mob rule) as our form of government.
What a worm you are.
Insults and apathy. Powerful arguments from a powerful intellect, Madam Subterfuge, formerly of the Kit Kat Ranch.
Insults are all you're worthy of, worm.
Probably a good idea seeing as how there is an attorney involved now and everything.
Just curious. . .do you think it is a good idea for government, whether local or federal, to tell a business owner how to run his/her business? If so, where is the line drawn on the level of control government should have over how a private business is run?
Not drinking coffee this past week because of the heat caused me more grief than not having a cigarette.
Where are you with the apologies??????????
Why don't you mind you own business. There are plenty of non-smokers here, and we find you very annoying. It must be the seaweed and tofu diet you're on.
If you could manage to turn all this energy and fervor toward something productive, the world would be a better place.
Puzzling.
Thanks for the ping!
"Start apologizing buddy..........ran out one night a couple weeks ago..."
Sorry (and I don't mean that apologetically) I was led to believe you are a smoker. Congratulations! You are not! Two weeks is a lifetime for most smokers. Great job and best of luck in you keeping the good work up.
I blow smoke in your general direction.
I don't know if you can get cancer from a flame post, but the Surgeon General probably thinks so, and based upon conrcrete science! How does it feel? I'll send flowers.
Forgettaboutit, there's no such thing as private property in this country anymore.
Nice try, but no cigar, bub. Go back and reread your own words in post 41......you owe a lot of people a lot of apologies.
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