North Country kids protest Big Tobacco in Washington
WASHINGTON, D.C. (ABC22/FOX44) – One group of North Country students took a trip to the nation's capital to take a stand against Big Tobacco.
In a two-day event in Washington, students from around the country met to discuss their common cause, and protested outside the lobbyist office for Altria, one of the nation's biggest tobacco companies.
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'We did a rally on the day of Altria's shareholder meeting,' said McKenna McGrath, a sophomore at Beekmantown Central School. 'They're targeting children… they're using a highly addictive chemical like nicotine to addict kids at a young age.'
Tobacco-Free Clinton Franklin Essex and Reality Check (Tobacco-Free CFE) is a program under the Champlain Valley Family Center that aims to 'reinforce the tobacco-free norm in communities throughout New York State'. Its specific goals include ending tobacco sales at pharmacies and achieving smoking bans in parks and apartment buildings.
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Ada Burgess, a freshman at Plattsburgh High School, said, 'I think one of the key things is about looking in your community and seeing the specific issues your community faces. One of the issues, in my school specifically, a lot of kids vape. We want to try to help kids and not just tell them, 'Oh, smoking is bad.''
This is the tenth year Tobacco-Free CFE has helped send students to Washington for this event.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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