For Immediate Release

May 28, 2009

Ed-Co JEL Ends The Year By Making A Scene

Last week traffic slowed and drivers craned their necks to see what was happening in front of Edgewood-Colesburg Junior Senior High School.  Dressed in shirts that said “1200 Dead….and that’s just today.  Thanks Big Tobacco,” the Ed-Co JEL group created a crime scene in front of their school, complete with police tape, chalk body outlines and evidence markers.  

 “The chalk body outline represents the 1,200 Americans killed every day by tobacco.  We chose the crime scene theme to demonstrate that any other industry would be held accountable for causing the death of 1200 of its customers everyday,” said Clare Jones, Prevention Supervisor for Helping Services for Northeast Iowa, the group’s advisor.  The evidence markers displayed shocking tobacco industry facts and statistics.  One of the markers stated that 26,000 children develop asthma annually due to exposure from secondhand smoke.  Another stated that for every eight smokers the tobacco industry kills with their products, one non-smoker dies as well.

 Delaware County has active JEL groups at Maquoketa Valley, West Delaware and Ed-Co High Schools.  JEL was created in Iowa in the summer of 2000 to counter the increased targeting of Iowa teens by tobacco companies. Their philosophy is to turn education into action.   If you want to know more you can visit www.jeliowa.org.