Hey guys, I’m Layla, and I’m a senior at Adair High School. I have lived in Adair almost my whole life, and the reason I joined YAHL was to help out my community and school. 

YAHL stands for Youth Action for Health Leadership, and our main goal is to help youth live a better, healthier lifestyle through our campaigns: CounterAct Tobacco and Elevate Student Health. Today, I will talk about CounterAct Tobacco and what I do to help.

CounterAct Tobacco is working towards comprehensive tobacco retail licensing. What I do for the campaign’s progress is collect surveys to get data on the opinions of people in my community, specifically on the issue of minors easily getting their hands on vapes and tobacco products. This is data that we then can show legislators to prove to them that the community is needing change. With the support of our community members and legislators, we can take it to the next level and fight to take the power out of Big Tobacco’s hands and back into our own.

My friends and I collected surveys to gather data from people in Adair.  I was able to work with Sage, Kenly and Neva at my town’s Christmas in the Country Festival. There, we were able to host a table for CounterAct Tobacco, inform people about the campaign and get their opinions on the issue through our survey. We had an amazing turnout and had lots of people interested in supporting and helping out in the community with us.

People should be supporting the CounterAct Tobacco campaign to show they support not selling vapes and other products alike to minors, as well as making the adults who sell them to minors accountable for their wrongdoings. 

We hope to have you help us stand up for Oklahoma youth and health!

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By: Layla Kearn, Adair High School