Our comprehensive youth advocacy training program is geared toward middle and high school students to equip them with skills to create change in their communities and fight for the first tobacco-free generation.
Public health and commercial tobacco prevention practitioners have increasingly centered equity in policy development to ensure that policies to combat commercial tobacco–related harms do not unintentionally perpetuate or exacerbate health disparities. This shift includes efforts to improve evaluation activities to better measure health equity impacts related both to outcomes and to how the policy was developed and implemented.
Learn more about our equitable approach to evaluation for commercial tobacco prevention at the point of sale. Then, explore our lists of sample metrics for measuring the community impacts of policy partnership in four areas. Everything presented in this tool can also be downloaded in a single guide that includes all of the metrics as well as space for notes.
In 2014, the U.S. Department of Education released Guiding Principles: A Resource Guide for Improving School Climate and Discipline. This resource for schools helps to create positive, safe, and supportive environments that can prevent and change inappropriate behaviors. This guidance also recommends using suspension only as a last resort for serious violations. In fact, school suspension can have long-term impacts. Students who are suspended miss time in the classroom and are at risk for not graduating on time, repeat a grade, drop out, or become involved with the criminal justice system.6 Suspensions also affect a greater proportion of students of color, students receiving special education services, students from low-income families, LGBTQ+ students, and male students. Most young people who vape want to quit. Suspending students who violate a school’s tobacco-free policy is unlikely to help them quit tobacco use, and could alter their academic and future goals. Because young people have been unfairly targeted with marketing tactics, the science of addiction, and long-term consequences of suspension, schools should provide a supportive environment and encouragement to quit using tobacco products, not suspension.
Most people start using tobacco in their pre-teen and teen years, a time during which a youth’s brain is still growing, making it easier to get addicted to the nicotine in tobacco. That’s why it’s important to educate youth about the dangers of tobacco and the fact that they are targeted by the tobacco companies and should say “no” to starting.
Increasing the price of tobacco products and presenting messages that counter the tobacco industry’s marketing are among the ways in which we can help youth never start using tobacco.
Policies that make “tobacco-free” the norm and that protect youth from getting and using these deadly products are also important. 24/7 tobacco-free school policy, prohibiting the sale of flavored tobacco products, and having tobacco-free outdoor parks and beaches are all examples of policies that may help prevent kids from using tobacco.
School policies regulating the use and possession of commercial tobacco products, including electronic delivery devices (e.g., e-cigarettes, vaping devices, JUUL, Suorin), often contain punitive measures for student violations. This publication provides sample language and ideas for evidence-based solutions and information as to why these alternative measures may be more effective than suspension and expulsion at addressing student tobacco use and nicotine addiction as part of a school’s Commercial Tobacco-Free Policy.
Electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) is the name given to a group of battery-operated tobacco products that allow users to inhale aerosolized liquid (e-juice) containing nicotine and other substances.
The terms “e-cigarettes” and “e-cigs” are often used for electronic cigarettes, as well as for e-pens, e-pipes, e-hookah, and e-cigars. These products are also sometimes called “JUULs” (after a branded e-cigarette of the same name), “vapes,” and “vape pens.”
Unlike traditional cigarettes, e-cigarettes are made up of a battery-operated heating part — a cartridge (unit) that typically holds nicotine and other chemicals that change into a chemical-filled aerosol when heated.
These resources will provide the updated tobacco-free school model policy and the new model code of conduct. This list was developed to support schools with implementation of new policies to prevent and reduce tobacco use and vaping on school grounds and at school-sponsored events.
The Tobacco Prevention Toolkit is a theory-based and evidence-informed educational resource created by educators and researchers aimed at preventing middle and high school students’ use of tobacco and nicotine products. Developing this Toolkit was accomplished by partnering with key stakeholders (educators, parents, and students), others involved in tobacco or health education, and scientists. We also conducted formative research to inform our curriculum, including holding a series of focus groups with students, health educators, tobacco prevention researchers, leaders within the California Department of Education’s Tobacco Control Branch, and basic scientists focusing on tobacco, e-cigarettes, and addiction, to identify the most important content areas that need to be included, delivery strategies that are engaging for youth, and to obtain the latest evidence known about each tobacco product to ensure that the information presented in our curriculum is accurate.
This study assessed support for commercial tobacco retail policies among adults. Overall, 62.3% of adults supported a policy prohibiting the sale of menthol cigarettes, and 57.3% supported a policy prohibiting the sale of all tobacco products. A majority of adults supported tobacco retail policies aimed at preventing initiation, promoting quitting, and reducing tobacco-related disparities. These findings can help inform federal, state, and local efforts to prohibit the sale of tobacco products, including menthol cigarettes.
Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable disease, disability, and death in the United States. As of 2017, about 34 million US adults smoke cigarettes. Every day, about 2,000 young people under age 18 smoke their first cigarette, and more than 300 become daily cigarette smokers. Over 16 million people live with at least one disease caused by smoking, and 58 million nonsmoking Americans are exposed to secondhand smoke” (CDC, 2019)
The misuse and abuse of alcohol, tobacco, illicit drugs, and prescription medications affect the health and well-being of millions of Americans. SAMHSA’s 2020 National Survey on Drug Use and Health reports that approximately 19.3 million people aged 18 or older had a substance use disorder in the past year.
Addiction Education e-Book and Guides