TAKE FIVE!

March 16, 2021

Meaghan Mullally-Gorr:
Hi, I’m Meaghan Mullally-Gorr. Welcome to Sullivan 180 Presents Take Five!. Our guest today is Lisa Heintz from TFAC, Tobacco-Free Action Communities at Ulster, Duchess, and Sullivan. Hi, Lisa, how are you today? Thank you for joining me. Can you please introduce yourself and let us know your name again and your title?

Lisa Heintz:
Sure. I’m Lisa Heintz. I work for TPAC, which is an acronym for Tobacco-Free Action Communities. And what we do is we try to reduce the negative impact of tobacco product marketing on youth. We also work on local laws that help create more tobacco-free outdoor spaces, such as parks, recreation, facilities, and businesses as well.

Meaghan Mullally-Gorr:
I know that we’ve spoken with you and have worked with you on several different fronts. You guys are involved in our Empowering a Healthier Generation program, but you’ve worked with a local organization, SUNY Sullivan, our local community college, and you’ve helped them become a smoke-free campus. Is that right?

Lisa Heintz:
We did. We were really excited when Pam Jones, who is the campuses student nurse. She headed up a project where they had a small grant to gently roll out the idea of the campus becoming tobacco-free. And when the pandemic hit, we thought that it was all going to fall apart, but she really stood behind it and she got the board to vote on it and implement it while the students were gone in April and they put up all the signage and they are working really well with keeping it smoke-free and vape-free too.

Meaghan Mullally-Gorr:
Okay. Can you tell us about Take Down Tobacco Day?

Lisa Heintz:
The idea behind Take Down Tobacco Day is that they do activities in their own community that raise awareness around the problem of tobacco. Whether that be really bringing to light the idea of that power wall behind, I call it a power wall, but it’s that big wall of cigarettes and e-cigarettes behind the clerk and every convenience store and gas station, but it’s through a grassroots effort, like Take Down Tobacco Day that people in the community learn about that this is going on because it blends into the background for us as we become adults, this is normal. We see this here and the youth have this space and they say this isn’t right.

Meaghan Mullally-Gorr:
So this happens on April 1st, right? And do people host some sort of event or they try to draw some attention to that day specifically.

Lisa Heintz:
They do right now. There is if people are interested in finding out more about Take Down Tobacco Day, there’s actually takedowntobaccoday.org. I know that we at TFAC are going to be doing some events. Jessica Canada, who was our youth engagement coordinator has been coordinating with the other partners across the state. They’re coming up with some ideas and we have our own Facebook page at TFAC. And she will be posting things as they’re happening and to give people an idea of what we might be doing and how they can become involved.

Meaghan Mullally-Gorr:
Do you have any advice to parents when it comes to the potential of their child vaping or smoking or using tobacco in general? What to look out for?

Lisa Heintz:
This threw a lot of people off guard when it first started happening. And there is one company in particular, that’s called Juul that had about 75 to 80% of the market share of all youth vapers. They had a very clever device that looked just like a flat USB flash drive and in fact, it did have a USB port on it that you could plug right into your computer to charge it. So parents really didn’t notice anything. You can’t smell it. And schools were really taken off guard by it, but now I think people are aware of what’s going on. One thing that I do think is important with anything like smoking or any kind of addictive product to have those conversations with your children to have a dialogue and to just ask questions and share information that you have about it. The nice thing is last year, all of the flavors were banned. So in New York state, you cannot buy flavored e-juice or vape products. So that’s really great in conjunction with that the law put into place where they can’t deliver it through United Parcel or FedEx or through the mail. So I think just keeping that dialogue open, having conversations and just making sure that the education is there in the school. I know the prevention educators in our counties are doing a great job of bringing it to the forefront.

Meaghan Mullally-Gorr:
Can people stay up to date on information about TFAC specifically? You did mention before you have a Facebook page, what’s your handle on Facebook and what’s your website?

Lisa Heintz:
Our handle is TFAC in Ulster, Duchess and Sullivan counties. Our website is just the name of our organization. So it is tobaccofreeactioncommunities.org. So it is really simple to find, and there’s hot links to our Facebook page through that, or people could call our offices directly. The number is (845) 943-6070. And they could speak to any of us if they want to get involved in any way, or they want to see how they could get behind making their buildings smoke-free or their parks smoke-free.

Meaghan Mullally-Gorr:
Is there anything else that you’d like to add?

Lisa Heintz:
No. I just appreciate you having me here and telling a little bit about what we do. Policy work isn’t always the most glamorous work that’s out there, but it certainly does help protect people’s health.

Meaghan Mullally-Gorr:
Yeah. Thank you so much for participating in our, Take Five!, and thank you for all of the work that you do in Sullivan County and the surrounding counties. It’s so important. Thank you.