By Zach Crouch, member for the Health Youth Ambassadors

Zach shared the following speech as the opening of the 2025 Rally for Kentucky Kids in the Rotunda at the annual Children’s Advocacy Day at the Capitol. 

Welcome to our 2025 Children’s Advocacy Day! My name is Zachary Crouch. Words can not describe how it makes me feel to see this Rotunda packed full of youth advocates and many elected officials joining today.

Thank you, Governor Beshear, Lieutenant Governor Coleman, Attorney General Coleman, members of the General Assembly, and all the leaders for joining us today to show us that we… matter.

The best way to open a speech is with a good hook. The number one hook is a joke, but what we’re here for today isn’t a joke. It’s not a joke because nicotine products affect more than just our friends, our families, and even the people we see every day.

Even though the number of youth who use nicotine products has slowly gone down over the past few years, the number of youth who use these products is still a concern. In Kentucky, 43% of youth 15-20 years old who use nicotine products say they got it directly from a retail store. This sounds very negative, but the CDC’s National Youth Tobacco Survey says that in 2024, 2.2 million school students reported current use of any tobacco product, compared to 2.8 million in 2023. This was a significant drop in the number of students who reported current e-cigarette use.

That means that what we are doing here today, what we do daily as advocates… makes….a….DIFFERENCE.

I’m from Taylor County and go to Taylor County High School. In my school, this is our number one problem: vaping. I see kids vaping anywhere they can, and it has gotten to the point that they don’t even care to get caught because they “need” that feeling. The feeling that hooks them is a dopamine rush. This happens when the nicotine hooks on to the receptors in the body and causes a chemical reaction inside them to make them feel “good.”…. To make them VICTIMS of the tobacco industry.

The effect on the students using these products is night and day: Grades dropping, underperforming in sports, and their overall health falling to a low.

My advocacy journey started by watching my father, Bruce Crouch, a retired law enforcement officer, deal with the opioid drug epidemic here in the Commonwealth. His theory has always been to “swim upstream,” but why go upstream? Because these issues affect the youth, we should look to them to lead the way out. This guided me to become the Vice President of the Taylor County Youth Coalition, supported by Senator Max Wise and Representative Sarge Pollock. The work that we do within TCYC is to educate and advocate to retailers who sell nicotine products in our community and also to address the nicotine crisis with youth and within our community.

This work with the TCYC has led me to the Kentucky Youth Advocates’ Health Youth Ambassadors program, administered by Crystal Willis. Through KYA, I have learned how to educate our community members and to advocate for our youth about the overwhelming nicotine abuse within our youth populations. KYA has given me many opportunities, and when they offered me the chance to open for Children’s Advocacy Day, it was an honor and a privilege.

Around the same time I joined the KYA, Griffin Nemeth accepted me onto the #iCANendthetrend Youth Advisory Board. The #iCANendthetrend YAB is a team of youth advocates sponsored by the University of Kentucky. Together, we brainstorm ideas on how to stop nicotine usage among our youth and spread those ideas and strategies with our state legislators, hoping for a brighter future for youth.

While a member of #iCANendthetrend, I supported and engaged directly in lawmaker education, leading to Senator Higdon’s introduction of Senate Bill 100, aimed at enforcing the Tobacco-21 law and holding retailers who sell these harmful products to kids accountable. Through my experience, I also learned about House Bill 187, introduced by Representative Duvall, to direct funds that Kentucky won through the JUUL settlement in 2023 toward tobacco prevention programs. These bills impact my community by further discouraging retailers from selling nicotine products to young people and making a positive difference by supporting youth prevention and cessation.

I hope that the General Assembly passes these bills during this session so we can make a real difference in kids’ lives. Will the advocates and leaders here today make that happen?

Children’s Advocacy Day is about raising our voices on issues impacting kids across the Commonwealth. Our voices matter today and every day. Join me in raising our voices:

I am Kentucky’s future, you are Kentucky’s future, we… are.. Kentucky’s future.

That is my story, my why, and my reason to keep going. What’s your story? What’s your reason? What.. Is.. Your why?

Thank you, all, for joining us here this morning and for your dedication to the health and well-being of Kentucky youth.

Health Youth Ambassadors is a project supported by the Trager Family Foundation.