SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION 0270
By Hensley
A RESOLUTION to recognize Georgia Willow Jones as the first-place winner of the 2017 Tennessee Tar Wars Poster Contest.
WHEREAS, protecting, promoting, and improving the health and prosperity of the people of the State of Tennessee are the stated goals of our State’s Health Department, and tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable illness and death in the United States; and
WHEREAS, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cigarette smoking kills more than 480,000 Americans each year, with more than 41,000 of these deaths from exposure to secondhand smoke; and
WHEREAS, Tennessee ranked forty-third in the United Health Foundation’s 2016 America’s Health Rankings in the use of tobacco; and
WHEREAS, the smoking rate among high school students in Tennessee is 11.5 percent, while the adult smoking rate is 21.9 percent, according to the Tobacco Free Kids′ tobacco-related data and rankings; and
WHEREAS, the Tennessee Academy of Family Physicians has coordinated the national Tar Wars program in Tennessee since 1999 in an effort to discourage fourth- and fifth-graders in this State from using tobacco products; and
WHEREAS, Tar Wars is a pro-health, tobacco-free education program for fourth- and fifth-graders by the American Academy of Family Physicians, and it is designed to teach children about the short-term health effects and image-based consequences of tobacco use; to illustrate the cost and financial impact of using tobacco and the ways money can be spent more positively; to identify reasons why people use tobacco; and to explain how tobacco advertising, tobacco use in movies, and the tobacco industry market products to children; now, therefore,
BE IT RESOLVED BY THE SENATE OF THE ONE HUNDRED TENTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF TENNESSEE, THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
CONCURRING, that we recognize and commend Georgia Willow Jones of Hartsville, a student at Trousdale County Elementary School, for her exemplary efforts in promoting a tobacco-free lifestyle to all of our youth in Tennessee, and for placing first in the 2017 Tennessee Tar Wars Poster Contest.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that an appropriate copy of this resolution be prepared for presentation with this final clause omitted from such copy.
