Why Quit Smoking

you should read it all; it's a very important cause

     The tobacco company does not care about you. In fact, they have actually flat out said that they think Americans are stupid…and that that is the reason of their success. They have flat out said that they are targeting blacks, the youth, and the idiots; their words. They directly insulted Americans and actually flat out told us that they are targeting the children, calling them “replacement customers”. Why? Because once their mommies and daddies die off, the children are there to become their replacement smokers. Isn’t that nice? Tobacco companies are targeting our children. They are watching our children, studying them, researching their behaviors, so that they can design advertisements to manipulate them into becoming tobacco users. Recently, they have tried getting them to become “social smokers”. Why? Because once they start smoking, they can’t stop and they’ll become regular smokers.

            Even worse: the tobacco companies are also targeting poor areas or countries. Why? Because they don’t normally have the education that we Americans are lucky to have to know the risks and consequences of smoking and they make it cheap, so what would stop them from smoking? 

            What good does smoking do for you? Nothing; maybe you think I am exaggerating but no, I am telling the truth. Absolutely, nothing—it doesn’t even help you when you are stressed out. That’s just what a lot of people say. Nicotine actually raises your blood pressure and makes you even more stressed out than you already are—it only seems like you may be less stressed because you are addicted and your body “needs” to feed off its addiction. 

            Smoking affects every part of your body. Not just your lungs. It can even affect your feet—it can create blood clots, which has caused some people to amputate a part of their body because there is nothing they can do at that point. 

Do you know what the most dangerous cancer there is? Pancreatic cancer; if you have it, you have about 2% chance of surviving and tobacco smoke can cause it. Basically, if you get pancreatic cancer, you’re done. That’s it.

            Smoking tobacco can affect your tongue. It causes this nasty fuzz to grow on your tongue (it looks like white hair which will start to yellow or brown from smoking more) and many dentists say they have to scrap off that stuff when they have a check-up. Gross.

            If you think an alternate could be chewing tobacco—chewing is even more dangerous and makes you even more likely to get mouth cancer. I think it was only about 25% ball players still chew tobacco; I’m just estimating...I can’t remember but I do know it was definitely in the 20%’s. So there you go—VERY LITTLE PEOPLE ARE SMOKING. Everyone says everyone is doing it, BUT IT IS NOT TRUE. Nobody wants to do it and those who did are usually trying to quit.

Do you know what they put in chewing tobacco? Shards of glass... Isn’t that nice? They include it in there so that it can cut your mouth or tongue and enter the nicotine into your blood stream, to get you hooked faster.

Do you even bother knowing what you are inhaling? Let’s see, hmmm…it includes ethanol (gasoline additive), acetone (nail polish remover), arsenic (rat poison), nicotine, DDT (insecticide), stearic acid (battery acid), and more. In fact, there are 600 chemicals in a cigarette and when lit, release 4,000 more chemicals. At least, 200 are known to be POISONS and 60 of them are known to cause CANCER.

 

You think you are only affecting yourself, you are dead wrong. If a nonsmoker sits next to a smoker for 3 hours in a stadium, it is like that nonsmoker smoking one cigarette. If you work in a smoke-friendly environment for 8 hours, it is like you smoking 6 cigarettes. If you live with someone who smokes a pack a day, it is like you smoking 3 cigarettes.

Parent smokers say they don’t smoke near their children. It doesn’t matter. If a child inhales that tobacco smoke from your clothes, breath, car, house, etc—they are putting that child in danger. Whether you smoke with the window up or not, it won’t make a difference on how much the nonsmoker in the passenger seat is inhaling. You are not helping the situation at all. RESEARCH. Don’t just listen to what people tell you.  If you are willing to put you, your family, and anyone else who is near you, the environment, in danger than you should at least give up some of your time to know the consequences and risks and make a real conscious decision on whether you still want to smoke or not.

But honestly, if you still WANT to smoke after reading this, maybe the tobacco companies are right. You are stupid. Not maybe, you ARE. It’s an either/or; there is no in-between. You can’t get away with smoking. That’s just life.   Don’t count on the government to ban tobacco—why would they do that? They tax the tobacco companies the most WHO ARE RICH, so the government makes a huge profit from them. It’s terrible how much they rely on taxing those companies. It’s disgusting.

            Do you know how much money you can be saving by quitting smoking? Taxes are already high with tobacco, so why are you wasting your money? Do something. Yeah, I know it’s hard to quit…blah, blah—lots of things in life are hard. What are we going to do about it?  Give up? Just let this unbelievable disgusting habit go unnoticed? DO you not care that the tobacco companies have publicly humiliated and insulted you? Do you not worry about your children’s health? If not, what do you care about?

            Believe me, I’m not trying to get preachy. My father died from lung cancer, secondhand smoke. It’s just not fair. You don’t know how much he suffered—5 years—with lung cancer. Chemotherapy and surgeries weakening his immune system which made him prone to pneumonia and colds, he used an inhaler because it was hard for him to breathe a lot and his constant jerking cough…which actually almost left him paralyzed. See, he had a car accident and cracked a disk in his lower back. A lot of people crack this disk…it’s not a big deal. Just back pains—it’s a nuisance but nothing Tylenol can’t fix. Well, his constant coughing caused him to jerk a lot and when I say constant—I mean 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, 5 years straight coughing—and caused this disk to break and if he hadn’t had it removed, it would have left him paralyzed. Why? Because someone was a little stressed out and wanted to smoke. He died when I was eleven. I just don’t think it’s fair. I don’t think it’s fair that many people make the right decision to not smoke…and end up dying because of tobacco. 

Any questions, thoughts, comments?