MAHONING VALLEY Schools get help against tobacco

The highest percentage of experimental behavior is in the fifth and sixth grades.
By WILLIAM K. ALCORN
VINDICATOR HEALTH WRITER
BOARDMAN -- Pupils need schools to consistently enforce no-tobacco policies, positive role models to help them not start using tobacco, and cessation programs to help them quit if they become addicted, health experts said.
Tobacco issues do not occur in isolation but rather they can cluster with other risk factors, such as drug and alcohol abuse and unprotected sex, said Bonnie Hoppel, health education consultant for the Ohio Department of Health.
Hoppel spoke Monday at a luncheon for school administrators, sponsored by the MCAT (Mahoning, Columbiana, Ashtabula and Trumbull) Counties East End Tobacco Prevention and Control Coalition, and funded by Tobacco Use Prevention and Control Foundation.
Hoppel said a comprehensive school district/community approach is needed to create a safe and positive environment in which pupils are more easily able to refuse tobacco and other risk behaviors.
Michael Renner, TUPCF executive director, said the key element is reaching young people as they form attitudes and behaviors.
TUPCF was created by the Ohio General Assembly in 2000 and is funded with money from the national Master Settlement Agreement between tobacco companies and 46 states. Its mission is to reduce tobacco use among Ohioans, with an emphasis on youth, minority and regional populations, and pregnant women.
Start when they're young
The secret to societal tobacco use is to get to young people, and the best way to get to young people is through schools. The highest percentage of experimental behavior is in the fifth and sixth grades, Renner said.
He said a new study shows that 50 percent of children tested showed at least one attribute of addiction, such as how early in the day they think about smoking, or how long it has been since their last cigarette, after smoking just one or two cigarettes.
Both Hoppel and Renner urged school administrators to enact and enforce no-smoking policies on all school property or at all school events.
Renner said that according to a MCAT survey, 73.3 percent of school districts in the four-county area prohibit tobacco use. He urged those districts to review their policies and make them stronger where possible; and asked the others to adopt tobacco use policies.
John Dilling, superintendent of Crestview schools, said his district has a successful no-tobacco program for several basic reasons:
UBoard of education policies and the pupil handbook are specific about the rules. Punishment for possession is equal to that for use. School facilities are smoke-free for pupils, but it is more difficult with the community. "You need to know what you can control," Dilling said.
UStaff members committed to consistently administering the policy every time. Of Crestview schools' 137 staff members, four are tobacco users, and none use tobacco on school premises. The staff is important as a role model, he said.
UAn educational program begins in elementary school and is carried through middle and high schools.
Mary Ellen Wilkinson, tobacco education for the Columbiana County General Health District, said MCAT offers numerous free services to school districts in the four-county area, including cessation program, smokers anonymous (12-step program), youth cessation programs and alternatives to suspension programs, and a youth prevention program.
"If we can prevent tobacco use, we don't have to worry about cessation," Wilkinson said.