More than 600 teenage students from around Iowa gathered for Boot Camp 2001, a Just Eliminate Lies conference held at Iowa State this week.

The conference started Tuesday with a kick off ceremony in Stephens Auditorium, where introductions were made and a brief history of JEL was shared by JEL Coordinator Tammi Blackstone.

JEL, the statewide campaign to end tobacco use and fight back against tobacco companies, is youth-run and directed toward teenagers, co-chair for the Iowa Tobacco Use Prevention and Control Commission Andrew Goedeken said.

“We know that we must use young people to reach young people,” Goedeken said.

He said the youth involved in JEL have proven that they are serious about leading this campaign.

The name JEL was chosen at a campaign in Indianola last summer, Blackstone said.

“We provide the truth for [teens] when the industry doesn’t,” she said. “We want young people to have a voice and to speak out against big tobacco.”

Kelli Hill, 16, of Hampton, said she came to the conference because of an advertisement posted in her high school office.

“I want to teach others about the effects of tobacco,” Hill said.

JEL is one of the groups funded by the $9.3 million the Iowa Legislature has reserved for tobacco prevention, Goedeken said.

Blackstone said the goals of group are to educate teens about the health risks of tobacco use, counter-marketing techniques against tobacco companies and ways to apply this knowledge at a local level.

“We want to motivate them so they go home fired up to inspire change,” she said.