School nurses in Liberty County and statewide have spearheaded anti-smoking campaigns that culminated with Thursday’s Great American Smokeout.

Organized by the American Cancer Society, the event provides smokers with a date to make a plan to stop, and it also gives educators a prompt for discussing the effects of nicotine habits.

At Waldo Pafford Elementary, school nurse Mary Kelly visited classrooms to spread her message that aligns with the school’s “Fresh and Clean: Smoke-free” theme.

“Our focus is to try and teach them that it is an unhealthy habit, it is terribly addicting and to avoid the first cigarette,” Kelly said. “I read that 11,400 children in Georgia become new smokers each year, and I’m trying to cut that number.”

Tobacco use is the No. 1 preventable cause of premature death and disease in the nation and in Georgia, resulting in nearly 10,000 adult deaths in the state annually from lung cancer, cardiovascular disease, respiratory diseases and other disorders, according to the Georgia Association of School Nurses.

The Great American Smokeout campaign is designed to inform children about the habit through visuals and lectures about how tobacco affects their bodies.

This week, Kelly hung posters with pictures of healthy lungs and ones affected by smoking, as well as photos of a smokers’ mouth. While the message may be rooted in fear, she believes it will be received. 

“By the time they’re in fifth grade here, they’re coming on 10-11 years of age, and that’s when most of them try,” she said.

And Kelly hopes the message will spread beyond school campuses.

“A couple of my posters up front are for parents picking up kids. One of them says ‘When you smoke, the whole family smokes, and it has an infant (on it),’” she said. “Kids will tell you up front, ‘Well, my mom and dad smoke,’ so I’ve been telling them they have to encourage their parents (to quit).”

The event also focuses on the effects of secondhand smoke, which has been linked to serious respiratory illness and can exacerbate colds and asthma in children.

Georgia is one of only two states without a state-level tobacco-free schools policy, but 77 of Georgia’s 181 school districts have adopted smoking bans, according to the GASN.

Still, 5 percent of middle school students and 17 percent of high school students smoke cigarettes, and another 5 percent of middle-schoolers and 9 percent of high-schoolers use chewing tobacco, according to the Georgia 2009 Tobacco Youth Risk Behavior Survey.

Because of higher usage rates, the message to older students takes a more direct tone, Kelly said. Last year she worked at Bradwell Institute.

“I addressed high-schoolers a little differently because I knew I already had smokers there,” she said. With them, she offered reasons to quit, such as how expensive the habit is and how it can make someone less attractive.

“There’s nothing cool about smelling like cigarettes,” she said. “And it’s a hassle; you can’t smoke at school so you’re always trying to sneak off somewhere.

 “What I tried to address is that it is almost as addicting as heroin, so try not to take the first cigarette,” Kelly said.

If you would like to quit smoking, call the Georgia Tobacco Quit Line at 1-877-270-7867.