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<br /> <br />Youth Anti-Smoking Events Planned For Wednesday <br /> <br />By Chris Grunert <br />Posted March 15, 2016 at 3:25 pm <br />Photo via Tobacco Free Kids <br />Young people across the country will gather on Wednesday to say no to smoking. <br />Kick Butts Day, like cigarette butts, is a day of activism against big tobacco companies and <br />youth smoking. <br />Gustavo Torrez is the director of youth advocacy for the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids. He <br />says tobacco companies spend billions of dollars each year in advertising and much of that is <br />target at youth. <br />“The goal of Kick Butts day is truly to provide a space to young people to really come together <br />and say enough is enough, they’re tired of being marketed and target to by the tobacco industry,” <br />said Torrez. <br />According to the Center for Disease Control, cigarette smoke causes more than 480,000 deaths a <br />year in the United States. <br />Joshua Pritchett is a nationally recognized anti-tobacco youth advocate. He says a simple <br />awareness of the dangers of smoking is a deterrent to young people. <br />“It’s really just informing them. If you inform the youth and show them the effect it has on the <br />body, they take it in, they really do understand,” said Pritchett. <br />This year marks the 21st annual Kick Butts day and youth smoking has certainly decreased since <br />these events began. <br />“For the last 20 years we really been focusing on trying to reduce youth smoking rates and we’ve <br />done so by reducing the high school smoking rate more than half” said Torrez.