 | E-mail this story |  | Write letter to editor |  | Order a classified ad |
| E-mail this story | | Write letter to editor | | Order a classified ad |
Principal Peter Laracy said Victor Sammurtok was the only Nunavut school to take part in the Building Leadership for Action in Schools Today (BLAST) program, which promotes non-smoking in schools and communities.
 Emily Ann Kanak, a Grade 8 student at Victor Sammurtok school in Chesterfield Inlet, displays one of the learning materials she brought back from an anti-smoking program in Yellowknife. |
There were 17 schools represented at the Yellowknife event, which was sponsored by the Alberta Lung Association.
Laracy said while most people may be aware of the Nunavut program which focuses on high school kids, he felt younger students had to be targeted by a similar effort.
"We were able to get three students in on the BLAST program, which focuses on Grade 7 to 9, as a pilot school," said Laracy. "It was a weekend conference that allowed the kids to look at the different methods advertising tobacco companies employ to attract young smokers.
"They also learned about the different chemicals in tobacco smoke, and how to avoid succumbing to the various types of peer pressures that can lead to you taking up the habit and getting hooked."
Doreen Kadjuk, Jacquenita Sammurtok and Emily Ann Kanak went to the conference from Chester.
The girls say they thoroughly enjoyed taking part in the program, and came away with a better understanding of how hard the tobacco companies work to recruit new or young smokers.
"I learned there are more than 4,000 gases and chemicals in cigarette smoke," said Sammurtok.
"That's a pretty high number, but I'd heard enough about it before the conference that it didn't really surprise me."
"It was pretty interesting to learn how the tobacco companies target young people so they can make more money," added Kanak.
"They don't care about what smoking does to your health, only that they make more profits."
