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Action on Smoking and Health
A National Legal-Action Antismoking Organization Entirely Supported by Tax-Deductible Contributions
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St. Paul Teens Push for Smoking Ban in City Parks [11/30-3]
Excerpts from: They want a smoking ban, no ifs, ands or butts
By St. Paul Pioneer Press [11/29/04]
Thorson doesn't want that scene to play out in Maplewood. Elisa Thorson, a junior at North High School in North St. Paul, is joining with seniors Kayla Helkamp and Carolyn Wiger and asking city officials to ban smoking in parks and other outdoor city facilities.
The three teenagers will present a petition and their findings to the city's Parks and Recreation Commission on Dec. 20.
So far the girls have gathered almost 400 signatures just from their classmates. The group's goal is 500, and the teenagers plan to canvass neighborhoods surrounding Maplewood's parks to find more supporters.
Their plan also includes getting area churches and businesses to write letters of support, and collecting cigarette butts in some of the city's parks to show Maplewood officials that littering also is a problem.
The North students are part of a growing trend of metro area teenagers pushing for smoking bans in their communities. Students in places like Shoreview and New Brighton have successfully pushed smoke-free park initiatives in their towns.
Some teenagers in White Bear Lake pitched their proposal to the city last week.
According to the Tobacco Free Youth Recreation organization, about 60 cities across the state — including 20 in the metro area — have policies banning tobacco in parks and recreational facilities.
The push for smoke-free parks is just part of what the North teenagers and their peers have been doing to promote tobacco awareness. A couple of weeks ago, they created a display to put out during lunch hours at North. It included a doll in a baby walker with a pyramid of cigarettes in front of her.
A banner pointed out that children who live with a smoker inhale the equivalent of 408 cigarettes from secondhand smoke by the time they turn 1.
Dave Ettesvold, a chemical health specialist in the North St. Paul-Maplewood-Oakdale school district, said what these girls are doing is important. About 20 percent of high school students smoke. And younger kids look to these teenagers as role models.
Ettesvold said Helkamp, Thorson and Wiger won't take no for an answer when they try to promote tobacco-free lifestyles. When students weren't coming up to their table in the lunchroom to sign the petition, they went to other lunch tables to rally support.
Cities in the metro area with tobacco-free park and recreational facilities: Anoka, Andover, Brooklyn Center, Champlin, Coon Rapids, Eagan, Eden Prairie, Edina, Golden Valley, Mahtomedi, Maple Grove, New Brighton, Plymouth, Ramsey, Richfield, Roseville, St. Paul, Savage, Shoreview
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