By Marcus Camacho
East Los Angeles College along with the East Los Angeles College Respiratory Therapy program is set to kick off the event “Kick Butts Day.”
The original purpose of the event is to promote “No Smoking” among kids around elementary and junior high schools, but now the organization is expanding to include the general college population.
“Kick Butts Day” is a non-profit organization that for several years has promoted a campaign to keep kids tobacco free.
The Respiratory Therapy Program has hosted this event for several years now. This year will mark the nineteenth year in existence.
Many participants across the nation promote this campaign on this day.
Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable death in the U.S., killing more than 400,000 people each year.
The organization encourages youth to be tobacco-free and support effective solutions to reduce tobacco use.
The “Kick Butts Day” and Respiratory Therapy program allows people to make an event or activity to help boost awareness about the problems of tobacco use in their school or community.
For ideas on what kind of event people can do on “Kick Butts Day,” people can search on the “Kick Butts Day” website.
In the U.S., there are 3,000+ kids under the age of 18 years who try smoking for the first time each day and 700 kids under the age of 18 who become new regular, daily smokers each day.
In the U.S. 800 million, kids consume packs of cigarettes each year, roughly $2 billion in per year sales revenue.
Statistically, more than 6 million kids under 18 alive today in the U.S. will ultimately die from smoking, unless smoking rates decline.
Respiratory Therapy student Robert Rocha was pleased to be part of this program that promotes a tobacco-free environment for groups of young kids and to be able to explain to them, in detail, how physically damaging it is to inhale any toxic smoke.
“When the event was presented to our class we were motivated and excited to be a part of a nation wide event. As first year students, this will be our first time joining the campaign and hopefully continue,” said Rocha.