GSCC launches anti-smoking initiative; first event linked to Black History Month

Greg Bailey, The Gadsden Times
·2 min read
Student leader Ashiureah Smith, center, introduced the Forever Free anti-smoking and vaping initiative at the recent Gadsden State Convocation for faculty and staff. She is pictured with GSCC instructors and co-leaders of Forever Free, Yolanda Monroe-Robinson, left, and Julie White.
Student leader Ashiureah Smith, center, introduced the Forever Free anti-smoking and vaping initiative at the recent Gadsden State Convocation for faculty and staff. She is pictured with GSCC instructors and co-leaders of Forever Free, Yolanda Monroe-Robinson, left, and Julie White.

Gadsden State Community College will use a grant to support a new initiative to help reduce the number of students and employees who smoke and vape.

A news release from the college announced the grant from Truth Initiative, a nonprofit health organization that, according to its website, seeks to “achieve a culture where young people reject smoking, vaping, and nicotine.”

That grant, according to the news release, will be used to promote Forever Free, which through December will seek to bring that culture to GSCC.

More:Targeted menthol cigarette ads helped lead to high Black usage. Should they be banned?

Julie White, a psychology instructor, and Yolonda Monroe-Robinson, a speech instructor, will lead the Forever Free project. They are joined by two student leaders, Ashiureah Smith and Kourtney Tillman, on a campus task force.

“Vaping has become a serious health threat to our young people,” White said. “According to the 2021 National Youth Tobacco Survey, over 2 million high school and middle school students are using e-cigarettes before they even come to college. Young people who use e-cigarettes are also more likely to start smoking cigarettes than their peers who do not vape.”

White said the task force “will work with our student leaders to spearhead educational efforts to engage and mobilize their fellow students to live a tobacco- and vape-free lifestyle.”

The initial Forever Free event, a presentation of the documentary “Black Lives/Black Lungs,” will be linked to Black History Month.

The film was created by Lincoln Mundy, a former Truth Initiative intern who earned that organization’s Youth Activism Fellowship. It details marketing efforts by the tobacco industry that targeted Black Americans with menthol tobacco products, and efforts by activists to turn “anger into action” against such marketing.

Showings are planned at 1 p.m. Feb. 14 in the Multipurpose Room at the One Stop Center on the East Broad Campus and 1 p.m. Feb. 16 in the Cheaha Center Lecture Hall on the Ayers Campus in Anniston. Promotional items and kits to help smokers give up tobacco also will be available.

For more information, contact White at jwhite@gadsdenstate.edu or Monroe-Robinson at ymonroe-robinson@gadsdenstate.edu.

This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: GSCC aims to cut down smoking, vaping by students, employees