Henderson County schools anti-tobacco program cut

A popular substance abuse program in the Henderson County school system designed to keep kids from smoking has fallen victim to budget cuts.

Tracy Stevens, Teen Tobacco Prevention coordinator, oversaw the Students Working Against Tobacco program. The program was funded through a N.C. Health and Wellness Trust grant, but it was wiped out with the stroke of a pen during recent budget deliberations in the General Assembly.

The grant amount for the Henderson County SWAT program was between $75,000 and $100,000 per year, Stevens said.

Stevens worked with 100 students in the county's high schools through the SWAT program, which focuses on peer mentoring as a means of tobacco use prevention. The loss of the program is devastating, she said.

"The kids were really upset, and that is what is upsetting to me," Stevens said Monday. "They asked me this question: ‘How can something that was created for public health be done away with — how is that legal?' And I don't know how to answer that. It's like the same people who created it took it away."

As part of their SWAT participation, students traveled to middle and elementary schools to make presentations about the dangers of tobacco in an effort to convince kids not to smoke, and to quit smoking if they had already taken up the habit.