ReACT 2023 Summit
The ReACT 2023 Summit was a huge success! Over thirty teens gathered at Carroll College on Friday, June 23rd, 2023, to avenge their generation as the tobacco-free Avengers! Check out the recap video below.
ReACTor Spotlights Campaign
ReACT is calling all Montana teens to join in the new video series reACTor Spotlights featuring Montana teen voices for a tobacco-free generation. These videos will be released once a month featured on the reACT website, Instagram, and Facebook accounts. If you have teens in your community who may be interested, please share this information with them. There is no deadline for submitting videos; this is an ongoing project. Please see the details below.
Video Requirements
- Length: 30-60 seconds
- Format: mp4
- Participant Age: 13-18
- Montana Resident
- Submit your video here!
Video Content
- Name
- Grade
- Town/City
- Question 1: Why do you stand up against Big Tobacco?
- Question 2: What activities do you do to relieve stress?
- Pledge: I am tobacco-free because – [participant fills in the blank]
Take Down Tobacco Day 2024: Sticker Competition
Take Down Tobacco Day will be here before we know it. And in 2024, reACT is celebrating Take Down Tobacco with our second annual sticker competition! These sticker designs are meant to expose the truth about Big Tobacco & the Vaping Industry. The competition opens Monday, January 1st, 2024. Visit https://mtreact.com/get-involved/events/ to learn more; we look forward to sticking it to Big Tobacco with the best sticker this year!
All Montana students in grades 6th-12th are encouraged to submit a single entry; the winning entry will receive a $50 Amazon gift card, bragging rights for the next year, and a spotlight feature on all reACT social media handles!
Competition Schedule
- Competition Announcement: November 27th, 2023
- Submission Opens January 1st, 2024.
- Submission Closes: January 31st, 2024
- Winning Entry Announcement: February 6th, 2024
- Sticker Launch: March 4th, 2024
- Take Down Tobacco Day: April 1st, 2024.
Competitor Requirements
- Montana Residents Only
- 6th-12th Graders
- Complete the ReACT Online Tobacco-Free Pledge
Entry Requirements
- Size: 3×3 Round (e.g., about the size of a baseball)
- Theme: Exposing the illusion of nicotine as a stress reliever
2023 Winners of the Take Down Tobacco Sticker Competition
- 1st Place: Lydia Comstock
- 2nd Place: Amelia Smith
- 3rd Place: Natalee Bohrer
ReACT Days of Action:
Days of Action are a series of annual events that have been used in Tobacco Prevention over the past fifty years. to:
- Promote quitline programs such as My Life, My Quit, and This is Quitting
- Promote tobacco-free lives
- Educate communities on the harms of all form’s nicotine products
- Celebrate and reinforce Clean Indoor Air Policies
- Youth leadership development
Red Ribbon Week
It is a national, week-long event every October 23rd-31st that focuses on the choice to be free of all drugs—including nicotine, the highly addictive drug in cigarettes and vapes. The campaign is the most extensive drug-abuse prevention campaign in the United States. Support our nation’s families and communities in nurturing the health of younger generations.
This year Red Ribbon Week’s theme is “Celebrate Life. Live drug-free.”
To get involved, you can do the following:
- Enter Your Photos in the Photo Contest
- Enter the Annual “Theme” Contest
- Take the Drug-Free Pledge
Get the details about Red Ribbon Week.
Great American Smoke Out (GASO)
GASO’s objective is to get a group to stop smoking for a day. The first recorded effort to get a group of people to stop smoking for a day happened in 1970 Massachusetts. An annual event sponsored by the American Cancer Society – Third Thursday in November (e.g., November 17, 2022).
Every year the Great American Smokeout draws attention to preventing deaths and chronic illnesses caused by smoking. From the late 1980s to the 1990s, many state and local governments have raised taxes on cigarettes, limited promotions, discouraged teen cigarette use, and taken further action to counter smoking. States with strong tobacco control laws saw up to a 42% decrease of smoking in adults.
Though smoking rates have dropped, almost 38 million Americans still smoke tobacco, and about half of all smokers will encounter smoking-related deaths. Each year, more than 480,000 people in the United States die from a smoking-related illness, meaning smoking causes 1 out of 5 deaths in the U.S. alone.
Consider joining the movement, and take the first step toward quitting cigarettes forever on November 17, 2022.
To get involved, you can do the following:
- Letter to the Editor
- Trunk or Treat
- Take reACT’s Tobacco-free Pledge
Get the details about GASO.
Through With Chew Week
Every February, it’s a national week-long event to raise awareness about the dangers of smokeless tobacco—including chew and snuff—and encourage people to quit.
In 1989, the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation began the campaign. The objective was to provide a public education campaign on spit tobacco, coordinated with dentists, healthcare providers, sports coaches, and teachers. In 1994, Oral Health America’s National Spit Tobacco Education Program (NSTEP) partnered with TWC to break the connection between baseball and smokeless tobacco.
Chew contains at least 28 chemicals that have been found to cause cancer in the mouth, esophagus, and pancreas. Treating oral cancers can involve the removal of tissue and bone, including the tongue and jaw. Smokeless tobacco can also cause gum disease, heart disease, and precancerous mouth sores. On average, chew products deliver a higher dose of nicotine than cigarettes making the product more habit-forming.
Your coalition can download messaging tips to encourage residents to be through with chew and help youth understand and avoid the dangers of chew.
To get involved, you can do the following:
- Letter to the Editor
- Coffee Caller Advertisement Campaign
- Take the Tobacco-Free Pledge
Get the details about Through with Chew Week.
Take Down Tobacco Day
We celebrate Take Down Tobacco Day on Friday, April 1, 2024. Youth, youth leaders, allies, and advocates are joining together virtually to host events that promote the following ideas with the goal of becoming the first-ever tobacco-free generation.
- Raising awareness about the harms of tobacco products across our communities nationwide.
- Make a personal commitment to reject the lies and manipulation of Big Tobacco and the Vaping Industry. You can make your commitment today by signing our tobacco-free pledge and posting it to your social media accounts.
- Educate local, county, and state elected representatives to support legislation that protects youth from the harmful marketing of tobacco products.
This is a day of activism where communities across the globe rally to push for the first tobacco-free generation. Youth tobacco rates are at a 20-year high in the U.S. due to the worsening youth e-cigarette epidemic. Tobacco is the No. 1 cause of death in the U.S. and across the globe. Find out more at takedowntobacco.org.
- To get involved, you can do the following:
- CTFK Photo Contest
- ReACT Annual Sticker Competition
- Letter to the Editor
- Take the Tobacco-Free Pledge
Get the details about Take Down Tobacco Day.
World No Tobacco Day
This yearly celebration informs the public on the dangers of using tobacco, the business practices of tobacco companies, what WHO is doing to fight the tobacco epidemic, and what people around the world can do to claim their right to health and healthy living and protect future generations.
The Member States of the World Health Organization created World No Tobacco Day in 1987 to draw global attention to the tobacco epidemic and the preventable death and disease it causes. In 1987, the World Health Assembly passed Resolution WHA40.38, calling for April 7, 1988, to be “a world no-smoking day.” In 1988, Resolution WHA42.19 was passed, calling for World No Tobacco Day celebration every year on May 31.
To get involved, you can do the following:
- Declaration of May 31 as World No Tobacco Day
- Take the Tobacco-free Pledge
- Write a Swiss cheese news release in your local newspaper
Get the details about World No Tobacco Day.
Chalk Walks
You can do this at any time. Just take over a sidewalk that gets a lot of foot traffic. Use sidewalk chalk to write bold, brightly colored facts, stats, or quotes about smoking or vaping. You’ll draw attention and help expose the truth.
TRUTH Facts:
90% of those who quit said they felt less stressed, anxious, or depressed.
47% of respondents who quit vaping reported that they felt more in control when they quit vaping.
78% of respondents who reported ever vaping but had not quit said they would feel better about themselves if they quit vaping.
Many tobacco users believe smoking reduces stress or anxiety.
81% who had used e-cigarettes said they started vaping to decrease stress, anxiety, or depression.
78% of those vaping before COVID-19 are vaping either the same or more during the pandemic.
Many young people cite feelings of stress, anxiety, or depression as reasons they start and continue vaping.
The nicotine in vapes can amplify feelings of depression and anxiety.
Vaping nicotine is a mental health issue.
Studies show that quitting nicotine can have as strong an impact on mental health as antidepressants.
