Audience: Tobacco prevention professionals, students and teachers involved in tobacco prevention at the middle and high school level. Health providers and professionals could also benefit from this workshop.

Key Points: Through a hands-on experience, participants will discover some of the “lies” that tobacco companies have been spreading to the public. Through a visual display, participants will see what chemicals are in cigarettes and the household uses for them. Dissecting actual cigarettes will show participants the difference between regular cigarettes and light cigarettes and disprove that light cigarettes are safer.

Learning Objectives: This workshop will provide participants with an outline so that they can go back to their communities and share the experience with others. Through the process we will show more than 20 of the over 4000 chemicals in cigarettes. Participants will examine a light and regular cigarette and compare the outward differences. Then they will actually dissect the cigarettes and examine how each is totally different than how they appear on the outside. Finally, using a magnifying glass, participants will look at the actual tobacco to see if they can find anything other than tobacco (many times we have found bugs).

Benefits: At the end of this workshop, participants will have a better idea of the chemicals in cigarettes and the truth about regular and light cigarettes. They will be able to return to their communities with a new “hands-on” activity that will help to keep kids tobacco-free.