Young people across the country will gather on Wednesday to say no to smoking.

Kick Butts Day, like cigarette butts, is a day of activism against big tobacco companies and youth smoking.

Gustavo Torrez is the director of youth advocacy for the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids. He says tobacco companies spend billions of dollars each year in advertising and much of that is target at youth.

“The goal of Kick Butts day is truly to provide a space to young people to really come together and say enough is enough, they’re tired of being marketed and target to by the tobacco industry,” said Torrez.

According to the Center for Disease Control, cigarette smoke causes more than 480,000 deaths a year in the United States.

Joshua Pritchett is a nationally recognized anti-tobacco youth advocate. He says a simple awareness of the dangers of smoking is a deterrent to young people.

“It’s really just informing them. If you inform the youth and show them the effect it has on the body, they take it in, they really do understand,” said Pritchett.

This year marks the 21st annual Kick Butts day and youth smoking has certainly decreased since these events began.

“For the last 20 years we really been focusing on trying to reduce youth smoking rates and we’ve done so by reducing the high school smoking rate more than half” said Torrez.

According to the CDC, 15.7% of high schools students in 2013 were smokers, down from 36.4% in 1997.

Torrez said increasing taxes on cigarettes is another good way to reduce smoking, as well as putting pressure on local government.

“We really need to reach out to our legislators to pass comprehensive smoke free air laws,” said Torrez, “because we know that when we protect our communities from the dangers of second hand smoke, we are having more conversations about the issues and the effects it’s having on our community.”

Anti-smoking advocates are now dealing with a new wild card, E-cigarettes. Often advertised as a safe alternative to traditional cigarettes, the FDA admits they have not been fully studied to know all of the potential risks.

Torrez said E-cigarettes are also being heavily marketed to children.

“These products are being marketed with flavors like gummy bears, cotton candy, watermelon, which as you mentioned are very appealing to our young people,” said Torrez.

Torrez says we need more regulation of E-cigarettes. He warned that E-cigarettes could undo some of the recent progress made by anti-smoking campaigns by getting kids addicted to nicotine.

But Torrez said the ultimate goal of organization like the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, is to create a smoke-free generation.

In the same anti-smoking spirit, the Orange County Health Department is partnering with Tobacco Reality Unfiltered (TRU) clubs at local high schools to collected cigarette butts in downtown Chapel Hill and Carrboro and provide resources to quit smoking this Saturday.

Kick Butts Day events are being held all across the country.

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