SWAT regroups its tobacco prevention effort

By placing 88 small crosses on lockers in their school's main hallway on Thursday, a few Lake Placid High School students want to illustrate the message that 88 people die each day in Florida from smoking-related causes.

The school's new chapter of Students Working Against Tobacco (SWAT) made plans at its Monday morning meeting for Thursday's Great American Smoke Out.

The school's SWAT chairman, sophomore Cynthia Stoker, volunteered to work on a poster to be hung at the end of the hallway, which will inform students of the 88-death statistic. tobacco efforts that try to get new

Stoker and the school's SWAT vice chairman, sophomore Morgan Whitbeck, attended a day-long SWAT training session at the Four Points by Sheraton Sebring, Chateau Elan on Saturday along with students from Sebring and Lake Placid high schools and students from Hardee, Manatee and Okeechobee counties.

"There are 28.8 million packs of cigarettes consumed by Florida kids each year," Stoker said.

Whitbeck said the training stressed that SWAT is not against smokers.

Faculty advisor Yvette Scholl said "I think that's something we really need to convey on campus that you can be a smoker and we understand ...."

"That you're a victim," Highlands County Tobacco Prevention Program Supervisor Derek Carlton said to complete the sentence.

The Lake Placid chapter only has seven members, but a couple of prospective members showed up at Monday's meeting.

Scholl said "This is just the beginnings of the SWAT group here this year. I'm new as an advisor and it's new to me as well so I'm learning just as much as the students are.

"We are hoping by the end of the year we will set a legacy for next year and the years to come that we are a viable club that really does a lot here on campus."

Whitbeck said, "I've seen all the things going on in our community, and I wanted to make a difference in it."

After being slowed by funding issues, SWAT is making a resurgence in Florida schools, including Highlands County.

The passage of Amendment Four in 2006 directed 15 percent ($57 million) of the 2005 tobacco settlement payments to Florida toward funding a statewide tobacco education and prevention program.

Through a series of grants Highlands County is once again receiving tobacco prevention funding.

Part of that grant requires a SWAT program and a tobacco-free community program, Carlton said.

"We just got started back at the beginning of the school year," he said. "We just finished our first youth training this weekend. So we are real excited; we are back here and it's a program that works."

This year the focus is on the high schools, Carlton said. "Once the program is up and established, we will be seeking to bring the middle schools on board."

The mission of Florida's SWAT is to mobilize, educate and equip Florida youth to revolt against and de-glamorize "big tobacco."

Tobaccoo Free Florida and the Florida Department of Health have given their SWAT youth a new logo that will coincide with the launch of the revamped Web site later this year.

Kahreem Golden, chair of the SWAT Youth Advisory Board, said in a prepared statement, "few words can completely describe the excitement I feel about the upcoming year.

"With the launch of the new logo and Web site as well as inducting new board members, SWAT is well on its way to being in the spotlight of tobacco prevention again."