How To: Trade In Your Tobacco Products

Want to help kids in your school quit smoking?  Take away their packs of cigarettes and give them something better!

1. Think up a game plan.  The whole idea of the day is to get people to give up their packs of cigarettes.  In exchange, you’ll give them something. You’ll probably have a few questions you need to answer before you can run this. 

Some questions to think about:

• How are you going to get kids to give up their packs of cigarettes?
• What will you give them in exchange? (How about gum to freshen their gross post-cigarette breath?!)
• Will you accept any other items (chew/spit tobacco, t-shirts, key chains, etc. with a tobacco company logo)?
• Will you have fact sheets?
• How can you include people who don’t smoke?
2. Ask for permission. Ask your principal if you can set up a table somewhere in the halls, or in the cafeteria during lunch.  Tell them about your event.  Try and get a teacher to help you out with all of this.
3. Get your friends involved.  That way, you can give different people different tasks.  See if one person can be in charge of putting a fact sheet together and maybe another friend can work on getting tables and chairs.  Get your artsy friend to make a flashy, eye-catching sign! 
4. Let people know in advance.  Post flyers or ask teachers to make announcements in classes.  Even better, if you have school-wide announcements in the morning or afternoon, see if you can get your message on there!
• FOR AN EXTRA TOUCH:  For one week before your event, have your principal present the school with a different smoking fact each day during morning announcements. That will definitely get the message across to them.
5. Get it running.  Set up your table, and be sure you have a ton of stuff to catch people’s attention.  See if you can convince people to give up their cigarettes.  While they are there, tell them about the harmful effects of smoking.  Be sure to include secondhand smoke facts for people who don’t smoke!
6. Show your success.  The day after, let people know how successful your event was.  Tell them how many people came to your table, how many info sheets were distributed, and how many people gave up their packs of cigarettes!