COEUR d'ALENE - There's no nice way to say it, so Karen Ashbrenner just said it.

"Tobacco kills. Brutal, but it's the truth."

And the truth, they say, will set you free - or at least from smoking.

Ashbrenner is a coordinator with Idaho Distance Education Academy, whose students took part in a community health fair Wednesday at Skate Plaza to educate kids and adults about the dangers of tobacco use and secondhand smoke.

It was in conjunction with a national campaign, Kick Butts Day, "that empowers youth to speak up and take action against Big Tobacco at hundreds of events from coast to coast."

Students in the I-DEA set up six stations, each with a warning about smoking.

Senior Alicia Lockwood and freshman Emma Beattie don't smoke, but said many students due to social expectations, "looking cool," and peer pressure.

A way to encourage their counterparts not to smoke would be to simply say, "Hey, that's really bad for you. Let me tell you some stuff," Lockwood said.

Let them know it's healthier not to smoke, she added.

"Educate them about what they are putting in their body," Beattie said.

And that's pretty ugly stuff.

One station highlighted chemicals found in cigarettes. They included arsenic found in rat poisons, ammonia found in toilet bowl cleaners and mercury found in thermometers.

Aluminum, copper and lead are also in cigarettes.

"Some of the people don't realize the chemicals they're smoking," said Tessa Overholtzer, an eighth-grader.

At another station, a glass container of yellow fluid indicated "how much phlegm a smoker coughs up in a day"

Then, there was "Mr. Gross Mouth," which was a set of fake teeth, stained, dark and yucky because of smoke. And there was also the comparison of two pig lungs. One appeared pink and healthy, the other, gray and sickly because it had been subjected to a tobacco-filled environment in a laboratory test.

"The visual aids show people this is what happens when you smoke, no matter what happens," Lockwood said.

According to a press release:

* In Idaho, tobacco use claims 1,500 lives and costs $319 million in health care each year. Currently, 14.5 percent of the state's high school students smoke.

* Tobacco use is the No. 1 cause of preventable death in the United States, killing more than 400,000 people and costing $96 billion in health care bills each year.

* Nationally, 19.5 percent of high school students still smoke, and another 1,000 kids become regular smokers every day.

* Tobacco marketing causes kids to start and continue using tobacco products. Tobacco companies spend more than $10 billion a year to advertise and promote their products.

It's time to say no more, said Matthew L. Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

"Kids are sending two powerful messages on Kick Butts Day: They want the tobacco companies to stop targeting them, and they want elected leaders to protect them from tobacco," he said. "We know how to win the fight against tobacco."