Shar­lene Ram­per­sad

A re­port from the Min­istry of Health shows that al­most a quar­ter of the T&T young peo­ple be­tween the ages of 15 and 24 are smok­ers.The re­sults of the sur­vey were re­vealed by Coun­ty Med­ical Of­fi­cer of Health for the Vic­to­ria Dis­trict, Dr Ak­e­nath Misir, at the min­istry's sec­ond an­nu­al An­ti-Smok­ing Po­et­ry Slam at the South­ern Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts, San Fer­nan­do, last Fri­day.

"Ac­cord­ing to the Panam Steps Re­port, 23 per cent of per­sons be­tween the ages of 15 to 24 years are smok­ers," Misir said."This alarm­ing sta­tis­tic alone shows that by en­gag­ing in this dead­ly habit, one could ex­pect a low­er qual­i­ty of life and an in­creased risk of de­vel­op­ing non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­eases, such as heart (dis­ease), stroke and can­cer."Six­teen schools took part in the Po­et­ry Slam and Misir praised the stu­dents for their con­tri­bu­tions.

"The per­for­mances were ex­cel­lent, it is great to see the high stan­dard that every­one ad­hered to."We be­lieve your voice and in­flu­ence are most im­por­tant in spread­ing the mes­sage of a to­bac­co-free lifestyle to your peers," Misir said.Girls dom­i­nat­ed the com­pe­ti­tion, with the top three prizes award­ed to Holy Faith Con­vent and St Joseph's Con­vent.

Ka­ri­na Ro­driquez, of Holy Faith Con­vent, Cou­va, cap­tured first place with her con­tri­bu­tion Hash­tag: Don't Smoke. Por­tray­ing a smok­er with lung can­cer, Ro­driquez ques­tioned the choic­es her char­ac­ter made, liken­ing the nico­tine ad­dic­tion to slav­ery."From this slav­ery there is no eman­ci­pa­tion!" she pro­claimed.Urg­ing her peers nev­er to in­dulge in smok­ing, Ro­driquez made them roar in ap­proval with her clos­ing line, "Hash­tag: Don't Smoke!"

Sec­ond-place win­ner Do­minique Fri­day al­so gave a stun­ning per­for­mance, dressed as a cig­a­rette. She told the au­di­ence putting a cig­a­rette in their mouths was like re­ceiv­ing the "kiss of death." The St Joseph's stu­dent said while peo­ple have the pow­er to choose, they are hold­ing trig­gers to their own heads when they smoke.The third place win­ner, Holy Faith Con­vent's (Pe­nal) Har­mo­ny Far­rell, al­so likened smok­ing to sui­cide and begged her peers not to be­come sta­tis­tics.