We also cannot advertise tobacco in our schools. We can't have ads in stadiums or basketball arenas that are sponsored by tobacco companies, and we have to prohibit students from wearing clothing that advertises tobacco in any form. School nurses and counselors have also gone through the Life Skill Training curriculum. The easiest enforcement is to suspend students, which is totally the opposite of what we want to do. If they are not in school, they are not learning.
Enforcement is a tough nut to crack, and it is a process.
Our only regret was that we didn't inform our tobacco control partners about accepting the money before the public announcement was made, to give them a chance to prepare a response to the media. But this was our only opportunity to get the curriculum into all schools. There were no strings - not even a requirement to announce the funding source. We chose to do that. We did receive a fair amount of criticism from the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and the National Education Association, and there were a number of editorials, both pro and con.