Centralia Middle School students ask council for fewer advertisements for alcohol, tobacco and other substances

May 15-A group of Centralia Middle School students is concerned about how ever-present advertising for tobacco and alcohol products might affect them and their peers.

Ten students from the Centralia Middle School Prevention Club visited the Centralia City Council Tuesday to discuss the impacts of advertising for nicotine products and other addictive or harmful substances.

The short presentation from the students amounted to a call to action for the five present Centralia city councilors to help curb prevalent advertising for these products.

To start the presentation, the students pointed out that current Washington state Liquor and Cannabis Board rules give local governments the job of regulating signs and advertising around cannabis stores. Additionally, the state does not have any regulations on advertising for vapes and e-cigarettes.

Understanding the state of advertising regulations, the students asked the council to take action and "balance the rights of local stores to advertise with the importance of substance use prevention."

The students specifically asked that councilors use their right to regulate cannabis advertising to set limits on the number of signs and to limit advertising of all alcohol, tobacco and other drug nicotine products near Centralia's schools and churches.

The group also recommended that locations posting these advertisements be required to engage in educational programs around the impact of the advertising and the products they are selling.

To support their requests, the students shared months of work researching and surveying their fellow students. According to the club members, advertising for alcohol, tobacco and other drugs increases the risk of youths using substances at an early age, which in turn makes those youth more likely to develop a substance use disorder later in life.

"Seeing alcohol, tobacco and other drug advertising everywhere normalizes substance use, giving the impression that everyone does it," said one student.

The students shared a poll conducted of 62 Centralia Middle School students concerning how often they see the advertising, especially in and around local convenience stores.

According to the poll, 74% of the students reported noticing "on sale" advertising for tobacco and nicotine products "most of the time" or "always" when shopping at local convenience stores. The poll showed that 72% reported the same about CBD and Kratom advertising, and 63% said the same of alcohol advertising; 57% said the same about marijuana or cannabis advertising.

At the same time, the poll found that 44% of the surveyed students shop at convenience stores between one and three times a week, and 33% said they shop at convenience stores one to three times a month.

After presenting their findings, councilors encouraged the students to continue engaging with the local government on the issue. Councilor Adrianna Garibay asked the students what they planned to do next to advocate for the issue.

"What else can you do with this presentation?" Garibay asked. "Because it's really important, and I think it's good that more students like you get to know this information."

According to the students, they will present their findings again next week during a spring youth forum at the Great Wolf Lodge in Grand Mound. The annual event put on by the Washington state Department of Health shows off prevention projects that were produced by youth organizations all around the state.

Michael Rains, one of the organizers of the club, said the students even received a scholarship to attend the state event.

In closing comments, Mayor Chris Brewer urged the students to reach out to the city councilors after the meeting to follow up on their call to action.

"That was a very clear call to action for us to see what we can do about this," Brewer said. "I'd like to see what we can consider as a council. Maybe we can bring it up in a future meeting as we'll see what we can do locally."

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