Scotus teens fight against tobacco

COLUMBUS -- Each of the 1,200 flags sticking up from the ground represented one person who will no longer be living after today.

Dubbed Project 1200, the display is set up on the south side of Scotus Central Catholic. It was organized and put up this week by Scotus juniors Krista Mulligan and Nicholas Raimondo, who serve as state youth board members of No Limits, a Nebraska anti-tobacco movement that is led by youth.

Raimondo said they put up the display to get out an important message.

“The number 1,200 represents the number of people who die every day in the U.S. from tobacco,” Raimondo said.

The statistic comes from the American Cancer Society, and it is one that the two believe needs to be spread. Through their work with No Limits, they are attempting to get the “truth” out about tobacco use. Their main goal is to reach out to their fellow youth.

“We are the ones targeted by big tobacco,” Raimondo said.

Mulligan said the tobacco industry tries to target young people by making cigarette ads and the boxes they come in “fun looking” and have also developed flavored cigarettes to make them more appealing.

Students involved in the No Limits group have been using other means to tell their peers about the dangers of smoking. They have attached statistics to bags of popcorn sold at sporting events, and also attended a summit that focuses on education and training youth to be anti-tobacco industry activities.

No Limits was started in 2001 and is funded through Tobacco Free Nebraska. It is the state’s first youth-led anti-tobacco movement. Its goal is to reduce tobacco use and to educate youth about the dangers of tobacco.

According to its Web site, www.nolimitsnebraska.com, the group is so named because there are no limits to what the tobacco companies do to market their products, and there are no limits to what teens in Nebraska will do to stop them.