Pamela Noriega (on left) and Ewa Zyla share a moment in front of the Tobacco-Free Marion County table at the Mall of Life at t

Handsel Art

PRESS RELEASE

Date: 3 May 2007

For Immediate Release

Contact: J.R. Few at

(870) 427-1365 or email

Money To Burn

Pamela Noriega (on left) and Ewa Zyla share a moment in front of the Tobacco-Free Marion County table at the Mall of Life at the Marion County Fair grounds May 3^rd. The Mall of Life, part of the Ready, Set, Graduate program presented by the University of Arkansas Extension Agency to all Marion County high school seniors, involves hands on financial education and preparedness for being a savvied consumer in today’s society. Attendees were given the opportunity to choose a livelihood, wage, and evaluate the financial management choices a monthly budget involves.

The TFMC table and literature emphasized the $1,475.00 annual cost for a pack a day smoker and the opportunities having that much extra income provides. Since tobacco marketing targets youth “replacement smokers’, many families, spouses and children, inherit a pre-existing debt burden in nicotine addiction.

Pamela is from Mexico and Ewa from Poland. Both are exchange students at Yellville-Summit. The most significant difference they see between tobacco use in their home countries and here is the use of spit tobacco. Ewa opines, “Though many people smoke [in Poland] you never see people spitting.”

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