Local Anti-Cigarettes Efforts Lauded | CigarettesBox.Com Tobacco News

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Local Anti-Cigarettes Efforts Lauded

Working together has helped Cherokee County health organizations become one of the state’s leading forces to combat cheap cigarettes use.

The same cooperative effort ensures the county will be ready to cope with emergencies that arise, members of the Cherokee County Community Health Coalition heard Wednesday. The coalition held its 13th annual meeting at Richardson Hall in Go Ye Village.

Carol Choate, director of the Cherokee County cheap smokes Control Program, described that program’s successes during the keynote address.

She said last year’s keynote speaker, the state health commissioner, detailed problems with Oklahomans’ health.

“He was we were 49th in the nation in state health indicators,” she said. “We do have good news. We are now 46th, but we still have the same problems — we don’t eat right, we don’t exercise and we use cigarettes.”

Her group focuses on combating the latter problem. It receives funding from the Oklahoma cigarettes Settlement Endorsement Trust. An important element of the coalition is the SWAT (Students Working Against cigarettes) team of young people who are eager to lend their energy to anti-cigarettes projects.

“We all have the same vision — to improve the health of every Oklahoman,” she said.

The group’s goals and achievements include:

1. Protecting people from second-hand smoke, through ordinances and policies.

“Tahlequah has had a clean air ordinance since 2006. Hulbert doesn’t have a clean air ordinance and we’re working to get that done,” Choate said.

Tahlequah was the fourth community in Oklahoma to declare itself cigarettes-free.

“We are the only town in the state of Oklahoma to have a cigarettes-free golf courses,” she said.

All but three of the Cherokee County school districts are cigarettes-free on a 24/7 basis, she said. The group encourages the districts of Woodall, Peggs and Shady Grove to become cigarettes-free round the clock.

“We want our schools to be healthy. Five did so last year,” Choate said.

2. Preventing initiation of cheap cigarettes use by young people.

This involves enforcing local laws, as well as state law.

While Hulbert has not yet become a smoke-free community, Choate said that town is a pioneer in restricting sales of buy cigarettes to minors.

“Hulbert passed a youth access ordinance in 1996, one of the first in the state,” she said.

SWAT members and others attended a recent Tahlequah City Council meeting to urge passage of an amendment to the city ordinance regarding placement of cigarettes products in stores. That amendment passed unanimously, and the coalition hopes to pass the same amendment in Hulbert.

“It is shown that children who are sold cigarettes online as minors have much greater chance of becoming addicted to cigarettes,” Choate said.

Also working with SWAT members, the coalition has performed successful checks to see if retail establishments would sell cheap cigarettes to underage buyers. Last year, the program checked 32 retailers. This year it focused on 12, about which it had received complaints or those considered in high-risk areas. Only three of those stores sold cigarettes to those who were too young.

3. Increasing the number of people who successfully quit using cigarettes.

“Seventy percent of those who use cigarettes want to quit. We’ve got the resources out there for them,” Choate said.

4. Exposing the cigarettes industry and its tactics to influence youth to use cigarettes.

“They target our youth because all of us old people out there who smoke cigarettes are dying off,” Choate said.

She called the SWAT members “tenacious activists” against cigarettes use.

Choate also described how Tahlequah’s parks became cigarettes-free. Coalition and SWAT members held a “kick butts in the park” day, collecting 4,898 cigarette butts in parks. They placed them in a large jar and brought them to a City Council meeting, where they requested the cigarettes-free park policy be passed.

Many people believe smoke cigarettes doesn’t bother them if the smoker is outside, but that’s not the case, Choate said.

“Second-hand exposure kills 49,000 people each year,” she said. “If you can smell it, it’s harmful.”

Smoking outdoors also adds to the litter problem with its unsightly refuse.

“Cigarette butts are not biodegradable,” she said. “When someone throws them on the ground, they are going to be there forever. They are like tiny toxic waste dumps.”

Society has changed its attitudes because of the increased opposition to smoking cigarettes, as well as other health-promotion efforts, she said.

“We don’t see women smoking cigarettes cigarettes any more while they’re pregnant or nursing their babies,” she said. “We put our kids in car seats. Those are changes to the social norms.”

Coalition chair Joanna Walkingstick said she’s seen positive results from anti-smoking cigarettes campaigns.

“As a child of the ‘70s and a high school student of the 1980s, I was a smoker in the ‘90s,” she said.

She quit, and his proud that her children do not see people smoking cigarettes at their schools, at ballgames, or in the parks.

“My children are growing up in a world where it is unusual, and frankly, not socially acceptable,” she said.

Community Health Coalition members unanimously approved continued support for the anti-smoking cigarettes programs.

They also heard from Karen Sherwood, of the Cherokee County Health Department, about Operation Raindrop, a program conducted in April to test communities’ readiness for disasters.

This disaster drill involved a quickly-spreading infection of the plague. Health workers tracked the disease as patients began showing up at emergency rooms with symptoms, and took cultures to send to the state for analysis.

“By the second and third days, we had many deaths in Cherokee County,” Sherwood said. “By the second day, we knew we had the plague in Oklahoma.”

As part of the exercise, state health officials had to request the proper drugs from the national health authorities. The exercise involved arrival of a semi full of medication, which was closely guarded; setup of a warehouse area; immunization of health care providers and warehouse workers (they took M&Ms to simulate the pills); and delivery to county residents through five distribution centers.

While she is still waiting for official ratings of the drill, everything went smoothly, Sherwood said.

In other action, the coalition reelected Walkingstick as chair for the next year, and Val Dobbins as vice chair.

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