BE smart. Don’t Start. Play your part, was the theme of the fifth staging of the annual Youth Anti-Tobacco Forum held at the Courtleigh Auditorium last Thursday.

The Jamaica Cancer Society in collaboration with Jamaica National Building Society hosted the forum with the objective of informing youths about the dangers of smoking and how important it is that we stay away from this very harmful and deadly habit.

More than 200 students from scores of high schools in the Corporate Area as well as from other parishes gathered at the Courtleigh Auditorium to receive valuable information from leading experts and professionals. The presenters — from the financial and medical field — spoke on the critical matter of tobacco smoking and how to make better decisions not just for our health, but also for our pockets.

Presenting on the topic of financial literacy, or the lack thereof, among young people, was Rose Miller, grants manager at Jamaica National.

Miller engaged the young audience on the relevant issue of saving and managing our money wisely. She pointed out that not only was smoking tobacco bad for our health but that it was a bad decision to invest any money in purchasing cigarettes.

As pointed out in a subsequent presentation, purchasing one pack of cigarettes every day for a year adds up to over $200,000.

At intervals during the forum, students were given the opportunity to win gift certificates courtesy of the Kingston and Sangster’s bookshops for answering trivia questions.

The students were also given four critical pillars of developing financial literacy and managing money wisely: budgeting, saving, seeking credit for business ventures, and insurance. These four pillars were guaranteed to take us down the road of wise financial decisions and financial success presented by Miller.

Minister of Health Dr Fenton Ferguson presented next, drawing on statistics to point to some very critical concerns as they relatessto tobacco smoking among young people. Although the National Youth Survey showed that seven out of 10 young people agreed with the banning of smoking in public spaces, Minister Ferguson pointed out that over the years, the prevalence of smoking among youths between the ages of 13 and 15 years has increased from 15 per cent to 24.9 per cent. Also, statistics show teh girls have begun to catch up with the boys, with an increase from 12 per cent to 16.8 per cent of girls practising the deadly habit.

The statistics reveal that young people are engaged in the habit of smoking to their own detriment. Teenagers not only run the risk of becoming addicted to smoking but this has negative implications for their physical fitness and endurance as well as on their mental capacities, as Minister Ferguson pointed out.

During this vulnerable period of our development, as young people we tend to make bad decisions and take up risky behaviour, however, the facts show that smoking tobacco habitually has long-term effects on our health well beyond the years of our raging youth.

Regional psychiatrist, Geoffrey Walcott addressed the issue of tobacco addiction and the spiraling negative effects that this has on teen health.

Tobacco addiction is usually a sign of mental illness for example, depression or stress, which are pointed out by Walcott as the driving factors that lead individuals to take up the habit.

This might also be the case among young people which speaks to another issue of the problems faced by youths that might lead them to smoking. Certainly, there are a number of problems faced by the youth — peer pressure and family dysfunctions being only two. The aim therefore as young people should be to find suitable ways to deal with our stresses, not taking up the deadly habit of smoking.

Walcott made the point that smoking gives the impression that it will not have an immediate effect on your health, but it will, not if, cause users to develop some kind of non-communicable diseases. For example, diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease are some of the common ailments faced by smokers.

Finally, general practitioner Aldyth Buckland suggested the triple A formula for living at our optimum physical and mental health. The first A is to ‘avoid’ people and places that might expose us to tobacco smoking or any other activity that might not be suitable for good health.

The second A was to ‘alter our lifestyle’, which included three components: good exercise, good nutrition and good mind which is to feed ourselves positive information from the right sources. The last A was to ‘accept treatment and support’ for any issue we might be facing, in this case, tobacco addiction.

The forum was time well spent as students became familiar with the negative impact of tobacco smoking as well as the importance of investing our money wisely.

You can also play your part in combating tobacco smoking by entering a poster competition being put on by the Jamaica Cancer Society. Students between the ages of 15 and 17 years are being challenged to create an original poster using the theme “Quit Now… your lungs depend on it!” for a chance to win cash prizes. Deadline for entering is May 9, 2014.