Lee County, FL— Foul air may engulf the 3200 block of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Boulevard for the next week as Students Working Against Tobacco air Big Tobacco’s dirty laundry in recognition of Kick Butts Day today. Quality Life Center SWAT Club members hung t-shirts labeled with Big Tobacco’s child marketing schemes to alert their peers, parents and the general public to the tactics used to lure children into a tobacco addiction.

“The youth want to send a clear message to adults that they need help to prevent Big Tobacco sales tactics from leading them to a life of addiction and illness,” said Chelsea Gomes, SWAT coordinator for the Florida Department of Health in Lee County. “Politicians, parents and business leaders are being asked to step forward to stop allowing tobacco product marketing to children.”

The QLC SWAT Club is only the first in Lee County to mark the anti-tobacco holiday this year. Next week the SWAT youth at Iglesia Pentecostal Ebenezer Church will design and post tombstones noting the people killed and their fatal diseases related to tobacco use.

Kick Butts Day activities are part of the national SWAT campaign #NotAReplacement against Big Tobacco. For more information on SWAT go to SWATLeeFL.webs.com .

The Department works to protect, promote and improve the health of all people in Florida through integrated state, county and community efforts.