By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
Take Down Tobacco National Day of Action is March 31. To help promote the campaign, four Barton County Youth Crew members traveled to Topeka March 1-2 to speak with state legislators about tobacco and vaping policies. The group shared thoughts about the trip with Barton County Commissioners during Wednesday's meeting. Hoisington Middle School student Brody Rossman spoke of the money grab that is the big tobacco industry.
"As part of this campaign, we went to talk to representatives and senators," he said. "We talked about taking down big tobacco and stopping the influencing of younger people. These companies get kids hooked, and they know they have customers until they either quit or die. They really only care about money."
Great Bend High School sophomore Jasmine Figueroa said approximately 100 students representing groups similar to Youth Crew participated in the two-day event. One activity was demonstrating how many people are affected by tobacco.
"Part of it was we took construction flags, the ones you throw down, and we put them all over the front of the capital building," she said. "There were about 7,000 of them we put down. Each represented a tobacco-related death in the state of Kansas."
Great Bend Middle School student Paige Trendel spoke of meeting with Senator Larry Alley, and Ellinwood High Schooler Alvin Bowyer said the $9.9 million Kansas recently received as part of a settlement against vaping giant Juul should go back into programs to help stop kids from vaping.
Youth Crew will host its second annual "Kick the Habit" kickball tournament Saturday at the Great Bend Sports Complex. Juvenile Services teamed up with Health Occupation Students of America to purchase Hawaiian leis to be handed out at GBHS on March 31 to promote "laying" off tobacco.