Reality Check
(Madison County, NY – May 2013) Over the past decade, youth advocates have attended shareholder meetings and were able to put a face to Big Tobacco; this year is no different.
Madison County’s Victoria Hysel, 14, from Madison Central School; and Shelby Jones, 17, from Morrisville-Eaton Central School, protested on the streets in New York City early one recent morning, then had an opportunity to speak directly to the CEO of Philip Morris International at their annual shareholders meeting in Manhattan.
This meeting presented a unique opportunity for advocates to address corporate tobacco executives and their shareholders. This experience brought together youth advocates from across the country and even from other parts of the world, to learn from each other and work together on this issue.
Ultimately, students let Philip Morris International and all of the other tobacco companies know that they and their friends have seen enough of corporate tobacco’s influence in other countries and here in the U.S.
The numbers of lives lost to tobacco are facts that cannot be denied, and youth and advocates made that clear, where the majority of comments and questions were about the lives lost and what Philip International was going to do about it.