ISTEP

Sean O'Connor visited the Interact club on Wednesday, January 20th, to talk to us about a new club idea called "ISTEP." ISTEP stands for Iowa Students for Tobacco Education and Prevention. Their goal is to make teens aware of the dangers of smoking and tobacco use and to offer help for anyone wanting to quit. They have around 80 chapters across Iowa. These clubs are led by teens in high schools, where the program really wants to try to make a difference. ISTEP believes that having high school students teach their peers about how harmful smoking and tobacco use can be will be the greatest influence in reducing the number of teens who smoke. When Mr. O'Connor visited our Interact meeting, he brought us some examples of the effects of smoking and tobacco use on the body. First, he showed us a few versions of "Mr. Gross Mouth," a model of the human mouth that showed the damage that smoking and tobacco use can do to the teeth and tongue. Then, he brought out two pairs of pig lungs: one that was pink and healthy, and one that was blackened and damaged by the simulation of smoking. He told us about addictive substances like nicotine and how easy it is to get addicted to smoking. He also told us about how much cigarettes and E-cigarettes are advertised to people our age. Mr. O'Connor proposed the idea to start an ISTEP club at our school or that we make it a branch off of the Interact club. We would do projects to raise awareness to end smoking and tobacco usage, like advertising hotlines for people that want to quit or counting how many cigarette buds we can pick up from a public park. Interact will be getting more information about ISTEP and discussing what we want to do to help.