This document discusses ways to reduce teen smoking rates. It states that teen smoking is increasing rapidly and is a major problem. It proposes stopping the promotion of smoking in media like magazines and clothing by removing cigarette advertisements and images. It also suggests banning depictions of smoking in TV and movies. Additionally, it recommends educating teens and parents about the dangers of smoking through mandatory school meetings, D.A.R.E-style classes, and strict conversations at home about the health risks and consequences of underage smoking. The goal is to decrease the appeal of smoking as "cool" and clearly communicate its dangers in order to lower teen smoking rates.

1. Teen Smoking
Have you noticed our teens in our streets being cool, hanging out, while
they have a cigarette? What did you do when you saw this? Did you even try to
stop them? If you didn’t now is the time to do so. Teen smoking is on the rise,
and is increasing at rapid rates. In case you don’t know, this is a major problem
that needs to be stopped…fast! Some ways we can stop teen smoking is to stop
promoting it with the media and through education. So what do you say’s, let’s
stop this problem! Here’s a few ways I think we can do this.
As I stated above, one way we can stop teen smoking is to stop
promoting it through the media. The general public loves to look at magazines,
especially us teens/kids. If we no longer promote smoking in the ads of
magazines, teens no longer see or read about smoking. Also we could stop the
good message teen’s view about smoking in magazines. If there is no message
or no ads about smoking, smoking will no longer appeal to one’s image. We
should stop making smoking appeal to teens. The clothes kids wear now-a-days
promote harmful things, especially cigarettes. If we stopped putting cigarettes on
clothing and hats, it could lower the percentage of smoking. By stopping the
promotion of smoking through what teens see as “cool”, we can get them to
stop. Also, we can ban the cigarette smoking on TV’s and movies. Kids watch a
ton of TV and movies. By banning the smoking to the teen public, kids will
eventually stop smoking. When the actors no longer do it, it will stop appealing
to teen images. Through these few ways, by stopping the promotion of
cigarettes through the media, teens will stop because smoking would not appear
as “cool” to them.
Another way to decrease teen smoking, is by making it part of teen
education. There are loads of ways we can put this into teen education. One way
is to call a meeting that is MANDATORY for all parents and students to attend. At
this meeting we would have a motivational speaker come in and tell everyone
the dangers of smoking. The speaker could talk about the dangers of smoking
and what it does to your health. Also to make the teens listen up the speaker
could talk about what smoking does to your image, and how it changes for the
worse! We should also have classes on smoking, somewhat like D.A.R.E but
more effective and for a longer period of time. In the D.A.R.E classes we would
talk about how to stop motivation from your friends to peer pressure you into
smoking, just to avoid it. If you see your friends smoking then you need to do
something about it! The D.A.R.E teacher should also show only the bad things
smoking does, especially to your self image because that is what teenagers care
about…a lot! We should get parents at home to be very strict on smoking too.
When they do have the talk with their chills we need to make sure teens get the
picture, and that they know this can kill them! Tell your child the consequences
of smoking the dangers and what will happen to them if they get caught doing it.

2. Make sure they know that absolutely nothing good happens from smoking a
cigarette. Through strict education and parenting of smoking I believe we can
decrease the rate of teen smoking.