Amanda Wooten’s attitude toward secondhand smoke is forever changed.

The Barren County High School senior, who was one of 13 students to attend a regional youth tobacco conference at Western Kentucky University on Friday, said the most surprising bit of information she obtained was how serious non-smokers can be impacted without ever lighting up.

“I never really thought that it was that bad, actually,” Wooten said. “I didn’t think that you could actually die from secondhand smoke. I never really knew that.”

“Even though you’re smoking, it does affect others around you and that they die faster than you would die because it’s secondhand smoke and it’s more deadly than just smoking a cigarette,” said fellow senior Adrienna Cotton, who also attended the conference.

It is estimated that smokers only inhale 15 percent of cigarette smoke, while the remaining 85 percent lingers in the air for all to breathe, according to information from the University of Minne-sota’s Division of Periodontology. It contains some 4,000 chemicals, including 40 cancer-causing agents and 200 known poisons.

The students hope to take their knowledge of topics like secondhand smoke from the conference, entitled HOT for “Help Overcome Tobacco” and encourage their peers to give up both cigarettes and spit tobacco.

“One thing that we see in our school, and it surprised me when it came into school, is how many kids are smoking these days, and not only smoking, but doing spit tobacco,” said Brenda Chaney, coordinator of Barren County Youth Services, who also went to Friday’s conference. “When we had this opportunity to participate in this, we thought this is something we can do to make a difference. Kids will listen to kids. That makes a greater impact.”

In the United States, 23 percent of high school students are current cigarette smokers, according to the Center for Disease Control.

For Wooten and Cotton, it was their second year at the WKU-held event. They previously took the information they obtained and put it toward their school’s spring “Kick Butts Day” initiative, which they plan to repeat in late March.

“We set up in front of the lunchroom and we handed out T-shirts and we had, like, big posters,” Wooten said.

“We put posters all around the school about, just like, what your mouth would look like if you spit tobacco and (what) your lungs would look like if you smoke,” the student said.

Lessons about the dangers of smoking and spit tobacco will not be for just middle and high school students in the Barren County school district.

Eighth-grader Kelli Reece, also a member of the Barren County Junior Guard, said her group is going to work on educating children at the elementary level.

“We’re going to pick certain kids to go around to all the elementary schools and talk about how it’s wrong,” she said.

Reece attended her first HOT conference and also walked away with valuable information regarding tobacco use’s harm.