CLEVELAND — A coalition of doctors and community activists is putting pressure on city leaders to help put a stop to tobacco targeting here in Cleveland.
Our city's youth are walking around with targets on their back. Everywhere you look, companies are advertising tobacco products using sweet and candy-flavored products to draw in a younger crowd.
According to the 2019 Ohio Youth Tobacco survey -- nearly one in four high school students and nearly 13% of middle school students have used a flavored tobacco product.
"These companies spent so much money to end lives before individuals even know what life is," said heart health advocate Sam Prewitt. As a survivor of a heart attack, Prewitt jumped at the chance to be one of the many faces you'll see around Cleveland standing up to tobacco companies.
Prewitt says one of his earliest memories of smoking comes from those candy cigarettes often sold at convenience stores.
"In your mind, it's like, I can't wait until I can do that. But you never knew that they really put that there strategically to target individuals," said Prewitt.
Not only are kids being targeted but so are black and brown communities. According to the American Heart Association, tobacco use is linked to one-third of all heart disease deaths.
Black adults are 32% more likely to die from heart disease if they are tobacco users.
Companies are making it easier to get hooked by using the addictive chemical menthol to mask the pain that comes with each puff.
"If we look back in the 1950s, only 5% of African-Americans chose tobacco products cigarettes that actually included menthol. But fast forward four generations later, roughly 90% of African-Americans, the tobacco products that we choose are mentholated tobacco products," said Dr. Charles Modlin with MetroHealth.
It's a fight Sonya Vezmar with the American Heart Association says she knows all too well.
It's one of nearly 50 organizations apart of a campaign pushing Cleveland City Council to take up legislation to end the sale of flavored tobacco.
"It's one of those things that if you don't stop, it just gets worse and you can die from it," said Vezmar.
