There are lots of things you can do to help protect children from the dangers of smoking. Even if you're not old enough to vote, your voice can be heard!! You can help to bring about change.

Do what the C.O.S.T. kids did.

• Start by researching. Go to your local library...use the Internet. (We have links to some great sites on our  resources  page. You need to know the facts before you do anything else. When you know the facts, you can take action.
  
  
• Look around your community. Become aware of the problems. Notice the tobacco advertisements that are plastered on the doors and windows of local stores. When you pass by cigarette vending machines and self service displays think about the children who can easily obtain cigarettes from them. Write the owners of these stores. Ask your parents to write or speak to them. Tell them they are allowing themselves to be used by the tobacco industry and that their practices are hurting children. Ask them to please stop. If that doesn't work tell them that you will take your business elsewhere.(sample letter to store owners)
  
  
• Write or speak to the owners of local restaurants, bowling alleys, skating rinks, and nursery schools that allow smoking. Ask them to make their establishments smoke free. Tell them that an establishment that allows smoking can be as polluted as six busy highways....that its air can be as toxic as that surrounding a landfill. Tell them that children shouldn't be in this type of environment...that no one should be forced to breathe this kind of air. (sample letter to the owners of establishments that allow smoking)
  
  
• Get a group of people who want to help and go before your town council to report the problems in your town. Be prepared with the information you have gathered. ( The C.O.S.T. group prepared by conducting a school survey and by doing compliance checks.) They conducted surveys in town to see how many people wanted smoke free restaurants, as well as surveys to find out how many tobacco ads were in their town.They wrote speeches and collected magazine ads and "junk" put out by tobacco companies.) Please don't do compliance checks (try to buy tobacco products) without adult supervision! A good way to get people to see how many people die every year in the U.S. is to perform a "BB demonstration.)
  
  
• Tell your borough officials what needs to be done. Present them with petitions that request bans on indoor smoking, vending machines, and self-service displays. (Grown-ups can help you collect the signatures. Don't go door knocking!) Ask your local officials to see that the the law prohibiting tobacco sales to minors is enforced. Explain to them that compliance checks "sting operations" need to be performed to ensure that stores are obeying the law. While you have their attention, ask them to pass an ordinance requiring no smoking in all public buildings.
  
  
• Write your state legislators. Tell them that your state should have a Clean Air Act. Tell them that cigarette vending machines should be a thing of the past, because as long as they exist, the law prohibiting the sale of tobacco products to minors can not be enforced. Let them know that you want to see a higher tax imposed on cigarettes, and that the revenue generated should be used for programs that would educate the young to the dangers of tobacco. Tell them that Massachusetts is doing this and it's working!
  
  
• E-mail your federal legislators. Urge them to pass a law that would prohibit our lawmakers from taking money from the tobacco industry. Tell them that the health of America's children should not be for sale! Tell them to stop subsidizing tobacco farmers. Millions of tax payers' dollars are given each year to farmers who grow tobacco. Tell them that this must end! Insist that all public buildings be smoke-free. Explain how dangerous environmental tobacco smoke is. For e-mail addresses: Representatives / Senators

If you want to write your legislators "snail mail letters," here is the proper form.

Ask for help. Write to a number of the organizations listed under resources.

• Write editorials to your local paper.
  
  
• Write to the editors of magazines that publish tobacco ads and tell them to stop! Sample letter to magazine editors
  (Addresses of magazines) 
  
  
• Collect tobacco ads and group them for placement on a banner. Create counter advertisements and share them with others.
  
  
• Create t-shirts of your own design.
  
  
• Collect hand prints on your own "Show of Hands banner".
  
  
• Speak before classes at a school or before organizations like the local PTA, Senior Citizens Groups, the Rotary, or Womens' Clubs. Show them the material you've collected, and tell them what you have learned. You may want to write a play to perform. (The Costkids wrote a played called, "The Trial of the Marlboro Man")
  
  
• When you see someone selling tobacco products to a child under the age of 18 call 1-888-FDA 4 Kids. Tell them where and when you saw the sale take place.

Speak up and send a clear message to our legislators and the tobacco industry!