Kick Ash Cambridge

Burning ambition to prevent young people smoking

Dedicated students are so determined to create a healthier society they have become mentors to stop the next generation being “stupid” and taking up smoking.

Young people from Swavesey Village College arranged visits to junior schools to talk to younger children about the hazards of cigarettes[...]

A group of young people giving up their time to talk other young people out of starting smoking. On the face of it, a very laudable cause and a very conscientious group of young people.

In reality, a group created by adults, fronted by children and paid for by us, the taxpayer.

Funding 
Local Public Service Agreement (LPSA) reward funding was secured to pay for an
overall school facing project coordinator within the PSHE service and a Trading
Standards Officer.  In July 2010 the LPSA reward funding was withdrawn.  NHS
Cambridgeshire and Cambridgeshire County Council are jointly funding the school
facing coordinator for the second year of this project; Trading Standards are
continuing to support the programme in-kind.  To ensure the future development and
sustainability of Kick Ash alternative sources of funding are being sought and in
particular from the Big Lottery and Reaching Communities Programme. 

I don't like it when children are used to further the agendas of adults. Even if this group was just created to educate children about smoking, doing so at the expense of the taxpayer is wrong, but they're not, they have their sights firmly set on adult smokers by backing the plain packs campaign and going to meet MPs in London to promote the false assumption that plain packaging will lower smoking rates.

The Tobacco Control Industry are constantly telling us that Big Tobacco target children, when Tobacco Control use children in a much more insidious way.

“They helped to organise and hold a Question Time event last September where over 100 attendees listened to a lively debate between panel members who included Health Secretary Andrew Lansley and Deborah Arnot, ceo of Action for Smoking and Health.”

That must have been boring. Are there not supposed to be people with opposing views in a debate? Arnott and Lansley could talk the back legs of a scabby donkey. I wonder what Simon Clark would have made of it?

Now they are planning a flash mob dance – where a group of people suddenly merge to perform – in the centre of Cambridge.

*Vomit* I'm glad I won't be there for that one. Anti-smokers dancing seems to be becoming a bit of a fasion. These guys in America even sing and do a rap.

Hannah said: “The Kick Ash Cambridge programme enables young people to stand up and be proud to be smoke-free.
The 15-year-old said: “I don’t like it when children start smoking so young, just because they want to look good.
“It’s stupid. They don’t know the consequence of what they are doing and then need to carry on. I hate the smell and it looks horrible.

Good on you kid. Be proud to be smoke free. If you don't like smoking then don't start. But I'll tell you what I don't like. It's children being fed opinions by single issue groups and then sent out to preach those opinions to adults.

Be proud to be smoke free if that's what you want. At fifteen years old I would certainly recommend it, spend you pocket money on hair dye or something, but also be proud to live in a country with the freedom to choose. That freedom is being taken away by people like your bank rollers, yet that freedom is one of the most important things.

Over the summer Anne, a keen dancer and choreographer, said she was helping to organise the flash mob dance in central Cambridge using a cigarette as a character, in a themed production.

Try as I might, I can't get the CiggyBusters and Steppy the Smokefree Kangaroo out of my head.

*Shivers*