The World Health Organization's (WHO) first, and only international treaty, The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), became effective on February 27, 2005. The FCTC requires all its member nations to establish legislations to observe the various guidelines listed in the FCTC, so that the worldwide tobacco issue could be brought under control.

　　Even though Taiwan is not a member or an observer of the WHO, it still enacted laws to support the FCTC, becoming the 51st country to have passed this convention. Taiwan's dedication to world public health is undeniable, and it shows that it has the capability to directly participate in the WHO's major policy-making processes. Our nation is ready to take the next big step by participating in the WHO.

　　Our country is not a large nation but we do have a population of 23 million, giving us the 2nd highest population density in the world. Taiwan has a sound public health system, remarkable medical professionals, amazing R&D capabilities, and lots of valuable experiences. We are waiting to share with the rest of the world these experiences, but we are unable to participate due to many political reasons.

　　Therefore, we hope that by enacting the FCTC in Taiwan at the same time as the rest of the world, it would give us a chance to utilize our local experiences to open the door to participate in the WHO. The first step is tobacco control and prevention.

　Li-wei is 17. He has been responsible for overseeing the creation of the main topics, establishing the project structure, and artwork design. After our team meeting, we were each assigned a specific task, and when those tasks were completed, they were given to Li-wei and our teachers to put together.

　　Cheng-yen is 17. His main job was to collect and organize information, so our team could be running on the right track and the project would proceed without a hitch.

　　Chun-yi is 17. He was responsible for the editing of our writing for this project. In addition, because of his public speaking ability, he was always the leader when it came to doing interviews and taking surveys.

　　Shu-yuan is 18. He was responsible for the artwork and design of this project, and he has always surprised us with fine work.

Percentage of students using the Internet at home: 100%

　　Our school is connected to the Taichung area Internet hub–National Chung Hsing University–via a dedicated T1 line. We are also connected to the TAnet, the Hinet via three two-way 512K ADSL lines, and the Heshin System via a cable modem. All these Internet connections are fed into a load balancer so that different ISP's could be sorted out. The parents and students use mostly 512/64K ADSL lines by Hinet at home.

Discovering the Truth about Tobacco Products - Because smoking is banned in school, and all the students are under the age of 18, we did not have any understanding about the tobacco products. We only knew that smoking is bad for the health, but we were unable to describe how it is bad for our health. Therefore, we decided to go to the bottom of the problem, and slowly took off the layers of masks about tobacco products. We have used extra time and made extra efforts to immerse ourselves in this project, so we could reach deep into the heart of the subject one step at a time.

Interpreting Law Articles - In the past, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) and Tobacco Control & Prevention Act (TCPC) were completely foreign to us, and we never tried to spend time and effort to understand them. Therefore, we could only ask our teachers and parents to explain the background and actual meanings of these regulations to us, enabling us to gain familiarity with the subject in a short period of time, so we were able to understand the domestic and foreign tobacco control policies in greater depth.

Lack of Foreign Language Ability - Because of our limited English ability, we each have an instant translation software on our computers, so we could reference some related websites that are written in English. In addition, we had asked Mrs. Jen to be present at the 2005 Global Forum for Health Leaders, where only English was used, on our behalf. She had obtained a lot of valuable information about tobacco control and prevention, endowing our project with an international vision.

Integration of Opinions - In a team-oriented environment, it is inevitable to have a divergence of opinions sometimes. When that occurred, we would let each person fully expressed his opinion, then we would discuss the viability of each idea. If we had reach an impasse, we would take a vote and go with the majority.

From the point of humanity, we should treat anti-tobacco as a top priority, so that many people's living ways and values of life will change. Our lives are like cigarette, which will become shorter and shorter when we use it. A complete lifetime is like an unlit cigarette - perfect.

Caring for Life - When the World Health Organization (WHO) placed tobacco control and prevention as the most important task of the 21st century, "Caring for Life" has become the common goal of the entire world. Due to the astronomical amount of profit that is at stake, the tobacco companies always try their hardest to disrupt the legislation and enactment of tobacco control laws and regulations. We do show our concerns to the tobacco farmers about their difficulty and struggles in the midst of the changing trend of our society toward healthier living; however, the tobacco farmers could choose to plant different crops, but the health of the general public is not something that can be taken lightly. This is a respect for life, as well as the principles of a series of life education lessons that we learn in school.

Sharing Opinions - When we reduced the amount of theory, and increased the amount of interaction with the general public so we could share the motivations and opinions about tobacco control, we found that we were able to encourage smokers to meditate and apply what we were discussing with them. Therefore, we used paper survey, community seminar, and conversations to make tobacco control promotion a lot easier, and not just talking about it on paper.

Put Thought Into Action - "Practice what we learn" is the goal and mission of our team. We have learned that when we were faced with a dilemma, we were able to use what we had learned to debate and prove, until we have found the most reasonable conclusion. We would like to look at ourselves as "Anti-Tobacco Warriors", to keep working toward the goal of advancing the world and fighting for the welfare of the mankind.

Watching Media - Anti-tobacco movement is a highly sensitive topic that involves many different forces, such as the benefits of the tobacco companies, the livelihood of the tobacco farmers, and the human rights of the smokers are all bases for smokers to argue for. In order to keep an eye on the media's reporting, we have asked the parents to help with the task of contacting the media. They wrote to the media to urge them to help with the public education by positive reporting, this way the level of tobacco control and prevention could be raised in Taiwan.

We kept an eye on the media's reporting.

Paper Survey - We had been taking surveys during the winter break. The topic of our survey was the basic knowledge about tobacco products, and our main subjects are the general public and the students. We wished to infuse some basic knowledge about the danger of smoking into the general public through the process of taking surveys. We have gradually acquired this knowledge after we started to work on this project. We feel that we have the responsibility and the duty to share what we had learned with others.

Seminars - We have held several "Tobacco Control and Prevention" seminars in our school and community, during which we distributed brochures that contain laws and regulations about tobacco control, the health risk of smoking, the effect tobacco products have on our society, and how to stay away from the tobacco products. We asked the participating students and fellow citizens to spend some time to read through the brochures, so we could pass down the health information that could save their lives. After several seminars, we found out that not only did the students and the fellow citizens get drawn closer together, but we were able to accomplish our mission in the process.

Surveillance - Reading thousands of books is no better than walking thousands of miles. Besides holding seminars, we were also taking the proactive approach, as we visited several stores that carry tobacco products to keep an eye on how they display the products. If they keep the cigarettes on open shelves, we would suggest to them that this is not a good practice, since minors would have an easy way of purchasing tobacco products. We even posed as customers to buy cigarettes. Some storekeepers sold them to us without even asking us for identifications. We even asked them, "we are under 18 years of age, are we allowed to buy cigarettes?" It was only then when they became speechless and took back the cigarettes they sold us. We realize that there are still lots of work to do on tobacco control, so even after our project is finished, we will continue our surveillance work.

Community - We are very fortunate that we have learned a great deal of medical knowledge through working on this research project, as well as understanding the danger of smoking in depth. In order to share what we have learned, we didn't want to miss any chance to tell the smokers the terrible truth about smoking. Even though we weren't always able to make them quit right away, at least they always responded positively to our advice, and promised us that they would cut back on smoking even if they couldn't quit completely. The reaction of the community residents tells us that what we are promoting is working, and we feel an even greater responsibility.

School - In the beginning, when our classmates first found out about the topic of our research project, many would ask us, "we don't even smoke, why do we need to research into this subject?" We would always patiently answer them, "Just because we don't smoke, there is an even greater need for us to understand the risk of smoking, so we will never become smokers in the future". In the past, many of us believed that tobacco control and prevention is a subject that had nothing to do with us, since the school does not allow smoking. However, after we went through the data that we collected, most of us have made a decision that we will stay as far away from the tobacco products as possible. Not only do we not want to start smoking, but we also do not want to become victims of second-hand smoke.

Minister of Department of Health, Mr. Hou Sheng-mou - On the first day of the 2005 Global Forum for Health Leaders, our volunteer parent talked with the minister of Department of Health Dr. Hou about our research project during the discussion of the Framework Convention of Tobacco Control. Our volunteer parent received a lot of encouragement and support, and we are advised to keep working toward our goal in the future.

Asia University Department of Healthcare Administration Assistant Professor, Dr. Ho Ching-song - Professor Ho was the host for the 2003 Taichung County Tobacco-Free Campus Assistance Project, as well as the brain trust behind the 2005 Tobacco Products Knowledge Assessment. He is currently conducting research at the University of Michigan. He fervently reminds us three main points that the Bureau of Health Promotion stresses to the Department of Health to avoid our mistakes in wording. We followed his direction and corrected those mistakes.

Missouri Dentist Dr. Li Chih-yi, DDS - Dr. Li is a licensed dentist in Missouri, U.S.A. We got in touch with him through our supervising teacher. Dr. Li has been advising us about certain technical and medical terms, and he has been very helpful in the translation of our articles so we could avoid making context mistakes.

The Surprise at Persistence - The social activists are always the incumbent parties, because their goal is to monitor the executive process of our government. Only with the existence of these justice-driven groups can our society and government continue to evolve. In the past several years, the non-profit anti-tobacco groups have been staying true to their original goal even under financial constraint and pressure from the opposition. They are working hard to create a tobacco-free environment for our fellow citizens. Their hard work should be appreciated, and their perseverance is truly amazing!