Through a Provincial Government investment of $50,000, the Alliance for the Control of Tobacco (ACT) will develop an online social media campaign with a strong focus on tobacco prevention and cessation targeted at youth and young adults in Newfoundland and Labrador.

"Smoking rates among our province's youth have steadily declined over the last number of years," said the Honourable Jerome Kennedy, Minister of Health and Community Services. "To maintain this positive trend, we have to continue getting the messages out to youth and young adults about the dangers and negative effects of smoking and tobacco use. Studies show that an effective way to do this is through social media."

ACT will engage a team of young people in the province to create content for the development of an innovative social media campaign on Facebook that will encourage youth to speak directly to other youth about smoking and tobacco prevention and cessation. In addition, ACT will partner with schools, local community centres, youth groups and sporting teams also on Facebook to help spread the prevention message.

"This campaign builds on the fact that youth from all regions of our province have always had computers, Internet and mobile phones — it is part of their way of life," said Gary Milley, Chair, Board of Directors, ACT. "Research has shown that three quarters of our youth watch video clips online regularly, almost all use mobile phones and spend almost half of their online time in social network sites. It is clear to ACT that social media is a road that we need to travel if we expect to influence today's youth and decrease the smoking rate in our province."

"Our government has made substantial investments in tobacco reduction in the last number of years," said Minister Kennedy. "We are committed to continue making these investments to help prevent youth from starting to smoke, to motivate people to quit, to protect individuals from second-hand smoke, and to continue to change attitudes overall about tobacco."

Budget 2010: The Right Investments — For Our Children and Our Future includes approximately $415,000 to continue to support tobacco reduction throughout the province, including $240,000 in annualized operational funding for ACT; and, $175,000 in annualized funding for the Provincial Smokers' Helpline to support the delivery of programs and services.

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