Conference aims to keep tobacco from kids

WILMINGTON — Members of the American Cancer Society and the NAACP were at the Union Baptist Church Thursday.

The conference was held to support legislation that would grant the FDA authority over tobacco products. The legislation would allow the FDA. to control the marketing and sales of tobacco to kids.

Despite how deadly tobacco products are known to be they are unregulated allowing companies to market to children.

Campaign for Tobacco-free Kids youth advocate Sydney Brunson said, “The tobacco companies are still trying to addict youth because they need us as the replacement smokers to replace the hundreds of thousands of people who die every year from smoking.”

Four-thousand kids under the age of 18 try smoking for the first time each day. It is estimated that 400,000 people die each year from smoking.