A Heartbreaking Trap - Menthol, Flavors and our Kids with Ritney Castine

Ritney Castine joins me today to talk kids, tobacco, and flavors, and also about the time he had to lobby a smoking Senator and future President! He is the former Managing Director of Community and Youth Engagement at Truth Initiative, a Washington, DC-based public health organization and also the former Director of Youth Advocacy at the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. He currently works with Center for Black Health and Equity, and is a fellow podcaster as a cohost of the Black Body Health podcast. He is the youth pastor at Trinity Church in Gonzales, LA, and we dive into what we can do as parents, communities, and churches to help break free of tobacco.

To Do:

1- Advocate for flavor bans and menthol bans in your community. Often these can be done at the county level. I have advocated for this in my own county, and a neighboring county recently passed a flavor ban. Remember, Big Tobacco may show up in insidious ways to fight back, but don’t be intimidated.

2- Contact your members of Congress to continue to pressure the FDA to move forward with regulating mentholated tobacco and vape products. Learn more at Centerforblackhealth.org for more on the importance of a menthol ban and important history, or check out the Black Body Health podcast- episodes 4, 10 and 17 to learn more.

3- Talk to your kids about how flavored tobacco and vape products are designed to hook them. Learn more about how to have these conversations at Flavorshookkids.org. Maybe your kid would like to be a youth ambassador against tobacco in their peers.

4- Consider a donation to Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids or the Center for Black Health and Equity, who have been working to help keep kids and communities free of addiction.

5- If you are part of a faith community, consider engaging in a No Menthol Sunday next May to educate about tobacco’s toll on the sanctity of life and how Big Tobacco preys on many of the most vulnerable.

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