Tobacco Free Coalition
Our goal as a tobacco-free coalition is to provide education and support to individuals who choose to live smoke-free.
Facts to consider
If a person smokes a pack of cigarettes a day at the price of $6.00 per pack in a year they will have spent $2,190.00. That money could have gone toward:
- Purchasing groceries.
- Gasoline.
- Pay for a semester of a college education for your child.
- Down payment for a car.
- A nice family vacation.
Smoke Free Air Act Violation
To make a complaint of a smoke free air act violation please call 1-888-944-2247 or visit smokefreeair.iowa.gov.
Quit Smoking
Ready, willing and able! Help is here!
Freedom from smoking classes are available through Winnebago County Public Health. Please call 641-585-4763 or 1-800-749-6235 for more information.
It’s free. It’s simple. It works. What are you waiting for?
Resources
What you Should Know
Just Eliminate Lies (JEL)
When the Iowa Legislature created the Division of Tobacco Use Prevention and Control, they stressed the importance of youth involvement in reducing tobacco use among young people in Iowa. JEL, Iowa’s youth-led anti-tobacco program gives Iowa teens the true, unfiltered facts about the tobacco industry’s marketing efforts. JEL coordinates activities to fight the tobacco industry’s efforts to manipulate teens into using tobacco products.
JEL provides peer-to-peer education to youth across the state, promotes leadership at the local level, and implements events and activities across the state to engage youth in the fight against tobacco. The goals of JEL are to change the general social attitude towards tobacco use, raise awareness through education, create effective counter-marketing, protect the rights of all Iowans from secondhand smoke, and support cessation among the young tobacco user so they quit and encourage youth to never begin using tobacco.
JEL has grown to be one of the most powerful youth led organizations, having over 7,000 members and a JEL summit with over 500 youth in attendance.
JEL’s Out-of-State Friends
- The 84 (Massachusetts)
- No Limits Nebraska
- SWAT (Oklahoma)
JEL's In-State Friends
Teens Against Tobacco Use (T.A.T.U.)
Every day more than 4,000 kids try their first cigarette; and each day more than 2,000 other kids under 18 years of age become new regular, daily smokers. That’s more than 750,000 new underage daily smokers each year.
Tobacco use begins at an early age. Almost 90 percent of all smokers begin before the age of 18. The Need for Tobacco Education: Teens Against Tobacco Use (TATU) is a program that allows students ages 14-17 to mentor youngsters about the dangers of smoking. Research indicates that teens enjoy opportunities to positively influence their younger counterparts. Consequently, this mentoring also serves to reinforce their decisions to remain smoke-free. Evidence suggests that peer-led programs such as TATU are more effective in reducing tobacco use among youth.
The tobacco industry concentrates its marketing efforts on our nation’s children. They recognize that new smokers must continually be recruited to replace the nearly half-million who die annually of tobacco-related illnesses.
Effective Solutions
The TATU program transforms teens from consumers to consumer advocates. They learn to recognize the tobacco industry’s efforts to target them as the next generation of smokers.
Teens learn the vital role they will play in educating children on the dangers of smoking
Empowered with this new knowledge, the teens take their anti-smoking message to schools throughout their community.
TATU teens have been involved in advocacy issues in their own communities, which have broadened their roles as youth leaders and role models.
In elementary and middle schools, high school youth presentations are a refreshing departure from the traditional lessons taught by adults.
