Shun Tobacco Movement is Ghana’s youth empowerment movement which encourages teens to educate their peers about the truth and facts of the health effects of tobacco and about the tobacco industry.
Shun Tobacco is a nationwide youth empowerment movement across the country that recognizes the power of young people to effectively take on one of our leading preventable causes of death–tobacco use. Shun Tobacco recognizes the power of teens’ determination, influence and ability to effect change. In a nutshell, Shun Tobacco is media literacy, peer education, and grassroots advocacy all rolled into one!
Tobacco companies spend billions of dollars marketing tobacco to youth, since they need to replace the over 400,000 customers that die annually. And it works–most tobacco users report starting in their teens. Shun Tobacco movement sensitizes Ghana teens in taking a stand not to become ‘replacement smokers’ for the tobacco industry.
Published research studies have found that kids are twice as sensitive to tobacco advertising as adults and are more likely to be influenced to smoke by cigarette marketing than by peer pressure.In 2006, a US court found that tobacco companies manipulate levels to keep smokers addicted.
Facts & Quotes from Top Tobacco Industry Executives
“The base of our business is the high school student– Lorillard Tobacco Executive
“…if our company is to survive and prosper over the long term, we must get our share of the youth market….this will require new brands tailored to the youth market.” – R. J. Reynolds
“Students are tremendously loyal. If you catch them, they’ll stick with you like glue.” – 1950, Phillip Morris Memo
“The teenage years are the most important, because those are the years which most smokers begin to smoke, the years in which initial brand selections are made, and the period in the life cycle in which conformity to peer group norm is greatest.” – 1975, Phillip Morris Report
“If younger adults turn away from smoking, the industry will decline, just as a population which does not give birth will eventually dwindle.” – R. J. Reynolds researcher, 1984
To sign up as a volunteer of Shun Tobacco Movement in your school or community or to get help contact:
Shun Tobacco Coordinator
thomas.cudjoe@smokefreeghana.com
