Using black-and-white video and dark chocolate syrup to simulate the grim reality of smoking, three students at Suncoast Polytechnical High School in Sarasota, Florida, won the Grand Prize in this year’s Kick Butts Day PSA contest.

From Idaho comes the latest evidence that the tobacco industry will go to great lengths — and spare no expense — to protect its profits and defeat measures proven to keep kids from smoking.

According to a report in the Idaho Falls Post Register, the Altria Group, the nation’s largest tobacco company and parent of Philip Morris USA, spent more money lobbying Idaho officials last year than any other group.  Altria spent $165,076 lobbying in the state in 2011 — it’s the only group to spend more than $100,000, and its total is 82 percent more than the next biggest spender.

With just five weeks to go before Kick Butts Day, March 21, more than 700 events around the country and on military bases overseas already are registered for a day of activism against Big Tobacco.

Have you registered your event?

Tired of chocolates? Are flowers all too forgettable?

Give the enduring gift of better heart health by quitting smoking or encouraging a loved one to quit this Valentine’s Day.

In addition to causing cancer and respiratory diseases, smoking is also a leading cause of heart disease.  In fact, about 130,000 deaths from cardiovascular disease every year are attributable to smoking, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  About 26 percent of heart attacks and 12-19 percent of strokes are attributable to smoking, the CDC says.

We're pleased to announce that we have redesigned the international edition of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids website. We’ve added resources, updated our look and improved access to tools and information to support the global fight against tobacco use, the world's leading cause of preventable death.

More and more communities in South Carolina and Kentucky — states where tobacco used to be king — are helping reduce smoking and protect everyone from dangerous secondhand smoke by enacting local ordinances requiring workplaces and public places to be smoke-free.

In South Carolina, North Myrtle Beach became the latest Palmetto State municipality to clear the air when the City Council passed an ordinance prohibiting smoking in workplaces and public places. There are now 44 smoke-free communities in South Carolina.

The percentage of teens exposed to secondhand smoke in cars has declined significantly, yet more than a fifth of non-smoking middle and high school students are exposed to smoke in vehicles, putting them at risk of disease including acute respiratory and ear infections, delayed lung growth and more severe asthma attacks.

Seeing red? We certainly hope so.

Today is the American Heart Association’s National Wear Red Day, when women — and men and children — are asked to wear red to raise awareness that heart disease is the number one cause of death among American women.

Ready to take on Big Tobacco, California health advocates have launched a blockbuster campaign for a ballot measure to raise the state’s cigarette tax by $1 a pack and use the money to fund programs to prevent tobacco use and boost cancer research.

The effort to pass Proposition 29, a ballot initiative to be put to voters in June, brought public officials, health advocates,  cancer survivors, students – and mattresses bearing the slogan “Let’s See Who’s In Bed with Big Tobacco” – to kickoff events in cities and towns all up and down the Golden State.

States around the country are getting wise to the tobacco industry's promotion of products such as sweet-flavored cigars and smokeless tobacco as a way to hook kids and offset the decline in cigarette smoking:  Increasingly, governors and lawmakers are proposing higher taxes on "other tobacco products" that too often have been left out when cigarette taxes are hiked.