NO FORM OF TOBACCO IS SAFE!!! NOT CIGARETTES, NOT CIGARS, NOT CHEWING TOBACCO OR PIPES. THEY ARE ALL DANGEROUS BECAUSE THEY ALL CONTAIN CHEMICALS THAT KILL!!!!

Many people try over and over again to quit smoking, but just can't seem to get it right. Some of the people who are able to quit say that giving up cigarettes was the hardest thing they've ever done. It's so hard that only three out of every one hundred smokers who try to quit smoking have long-term success. (SGR, Preventing Tobacco Use Among Young People, p. 31) The reason that so many people have such a hard time giving up smoking is because of Nicotine. Just what is nicotine? It's a poisonous ingredient found in products made from the dried leaves of the tobacco plant, such as cigarettes, pipe tobacco, cigars, and chewing tobacco. It's a powerful drug that acts in the brain and throughout the body. This drug is so powerful that only two or three drops of pure nicotine (less than 50mg) placed on the tongue will bring quick death to an adult. (Grolier AOL) Besides being poisonous, nicotine is addictive, just as addictive as heroin, cocaine, and alcohol. (CDC). When the smoke from a cigarette is inhaled it first travels to the lungs. From there all of the dangerous substances enter the blood stream and are taken to all of the major organs. It only takes 8 seconds for nicotine to reach the brain. It is here that the addiction takes place because nicotine changes the way the brain processes information.

Just what does addictive mean?
Have you ever tried to eat just one potato chip, or how about one Dorito, or one M&M? It's pretty hard not to take a second helping of something you really like, isn't it? Well, you can't compare an addiction to nicotine to wanting to eat more than one Dorito. That's because if you get addicted to a drug, you'll most likely go through withdrawal symptoms when you suddenly try to stop using it. If you get addicted to nicotine and try to give it up, you may go through any of these withdrawal symptoms:

• restlessness
• eating more than usual
• impatience, frustration, anger
• difficulty concentrating
• excessive hunger
• depression
• loss of energy/fatigue, dizziness
• stomach or bowel problems
• headaches
• sweating
• insomnia, (not being able to sleep)
• heart palpitations, tremors
• having a strong desire to smoke again.

It would be pretty bad to have to go through any of these symptoms, but when you try to give up using nicotine, you may suffer through a combination of them.

The tobacco companies don't want us to know about the suffering people go through when they try to give up smoking. They don't want us to know that nicotine is so addictive that people who have had cancer of the larynx which required tracheotomies have been known to put a lit cigarette up to their tracheotomy hole so that they can get the nicotine into their system. They don't want us to know that World War II, prisoners of war often traded food rations for tobacco, and some died of starvation in the process. Imagine trading food for cigarettes! The tobacco companies would never tell us this. They're afraid that if we knew how easy it is to get addicted and how awful it is to quit, we might not start. Then they wouldn't be able to make billions of dollars in profits every year. So the tobacco companies continue to lie to us. Even though research shows that NICOTINE IS ADDICTIVE, the tobacco industry continues to tell us that it isn't. Should we believe the tobacco industry or researchers? Should we believe the tobacco industry or people who have smoked and know how hard it is to quit? Listen to what two patients with emphysema have to say about nicotine.

Hi, my name is Marlene. I am 49 and have 17-year old twin daughters. I started smoking when I was 18 years old. And, right away, was a 2 to 3 pack-a-day smoker. In the last 31 years, I have quit smoking only once, and that was when I had my wisdom teeth chipped out, one week at a time. So, for 4 weeks I did not smoke. Is smoking addictive? You just bet it is. Some of you may say, "I'm young, I can smoke for a few years, and then quit." But, you can't. I thought that, but I was wrong. I've tried to stop smoking so many times that I've lost count. I have tried using the nicotine gum, the patch, the aerosol nasal spray, hypnosis, stop smoking classes, support groups, and everything under the sun. Stopping smoking is worse than dieting, stopping the use of alcohol, or biting your nails, and from what I've read, worse than stopping a drug addiction. But, nicotine is a drug, a drug that is more addictive than cocaine and heroin. When you first stop smoking, all you can think about is -- I want a cigarette..... over, and over, and over, and over ..... You put your arms around yourself, and hug yourself tight, tears roll down your face, your hands tremble, you can't breath (ha, you can't breath anyway when you have Emphysema or chronic bronchitis--but it gets worse), you start shaking. And you bite your tongue -- to keep from begging someone to buy you just one more pack, or get you just one more cigarette. And, after many, many, tries, and you finally succeed, you can never again have even one cigarette!!! That one cigarette will start the vicious cycle all over again. So, the best course of action, is to "JUST SAY NO!" when friends hold out a cigarette for you to try. In fact, that first cigarette makes you feel pretty sick -- nauseous, light headed. But, if you get past that feeling, then you are hooked.! And, it's been proven that you're hooked almost for life. Now, there is just one more thing I want to tell you. And that's what my life is like now. I have had to quit work, because I can't breathe. And because I can't breathe, I am taking 33 pills and 5 inhalers a day. While these medicines help me, they don't cure me. THERE IS NO CURE FOR EMPHYSEMA!!! And another side-effect of these medicines and of not having enough air to breath is that my memory is gone. When my teen-age girls tell me something, I don't remember it the next day. Also, I can not go to their school performances, award ceremonies, nor can I go clothes shopping with them, nor shopping with them for groceries. Instead of me helping them, they have to help me -- get me something to drink, water, snacks. They have to do the cleaning, dish and clothes washing, help with the cooking. OK, I can hear you. You have chores, too. But, you are not the primary person -- you are helping your parent. I hope this has helped to make you more aware. (I don't want you to get emphysema. I don't want you to get addicted.) Having Emphysema is NO picnic. Being ADDICTED is No Picnic. Thanks, for reading/listening.

Like, Marlene, Bud Ellis also suffered from Emphysema. Sadly, he passed away last year. Before he died, he worked with COST to help get the word out. He wanted to tell you what it's like to be addicted to nicotine.

I was diagnosed with severe emphysema while in the hospital for treatment of the flu. The doctors told me that if I was to go back to smoking I would not live for another year, the best thing I could do for myself was to stay away from smoking, as I had already gone through the physical part of the addiction while I spent the 13 days in the hospital and of course, I could not smoke while in there. Knowing full well that if I started smoking again, it would really be like trying to kill myself, I started to smoke within an hour after getting out of the hospital. I did not wait until I got home, I stopped my car along the way and bought me a pack of cigarettes within 15 minutes after I got into my car. As the disease grew increasingly worse, I continued to smoke and it was very upsetting to me. Each time I smoked one I knew I was in the process of killing myself, and I felt guilty about doing it. I tried and tried many times to quit but even with the Gum, the patches, and even self-help tapes, I just could not stay quit. The addiction was stronger than my will to live. I did not enjoy smoking for the last year that I smoked, but something drove me to smoke and as I have said, it was a guilt trip all the time. If you have ever had to do something that you knew was going to hurt you, yet some outside driving force compels you to do it, then you may have a slight idea of just how strong the addiction to nicotine can be. It is like something forcing you to place your hand into a flame.... The truth is, smoking robs you of your independence. When you use tobacco, you become dependent on nicotine. When you try to break free from it, it often drags you back, because the withdrawal symptoms are so hard to fight. Being dependent on nicotine robs you of your freedom to make choices. It robs you of your health, your money, and your life.

The tobacco companies don't want you to hear stories like Marlene's and Bud's. They go against the image that the tobacco companies want you to have of smoking...the image of being in control...of being independent. The tobacco companies have everything to gain by lying to us. This year, next year, and the year after that, they will make over $1,000.000.000.000 in the sale of cigarettes to kids under the age of 18. UNLESS WE STOP THEM! Let's tell them they'd better start saving for a rainy day, because smoking stops with us.

By now you should know why so many people die because of tobacco use. First they become addicted to the nicotine, but the damage is done by the thousands of chemicals in the smoke of the cigarette. The addiction and the chemicals create the deadly combination.

Did you know?

• Almost 75% of teenagers who smoked in high school were still smokers 7-9 years later even though only 5% of those persons had predicted they would be. (National Institute on Drug Abuse, 1975-1990)
• The vast majority of current smokers (83% wish they and never started. (Gallup Poll, 1990)
• Most smokers (93%) who try to quit smoking start back within one year.
• Even one-third of the people who quit for at least one year eventually relapse.
  

Some of you might be thinking, "I'm already addicted to nicotine, so there's no point in quitting because the damage is already done." The truth is, no matter how long you have used tobacco, your body still wants to repair all of the tobacco-related damage when you quit. When you stop using tobacco, some of the tissues that have been affected gradually return to normal. The outlook for health improves rather rapidly once you quit smoking. Here's the good news:

• Within twenty minutes of your last cigarette, your blood pressure, pulse rate and body temperature return to normal.
• Within eight hours, your body starts to heal itself; the carbon monoxide level in your blood drops to normal and the oxygen level in your blood increases to its normal level.
• Within twenty-four hours, your chance of heart attack decreases.
• Within forty-eight hours, nerve endings start regrowing, and your ability to smell and taste things improves.
• Within seventy-two hours, your bronchial tubes relax, lung capacity increases, and breathing becomes easier.
• Within two weeks to three months, circulation improves, walking becomes easier and lung function increases up to thirty percent.
• Within one to nine months, cilia regrow in the lungs, increasing their ability to handle mucous, clean lungs and reduce infection.
• Coughing, sinus congestion, fatigue and shortness of breath decrease, and your body's overall energy level increases.
• Within five years, the lung cancer death rate for the average smoker (one pack a day) decreases from 137 per 100,000 people to 72 per 100,000 people.
• Within ten years, the lung cancer death rate for the average smoker drops to almost the rate of nonsmokers (12 deaths per 100,000 people).
• The risk for other cancers (mouth, larynx, esophagus, bladder, kidney, pancreas) also decrease.

You can see that as soon as a person stops smoking, his body starts to repair itself. The bad news is that sometimes the damage caused by tobacco smoke is so bad that it can not be reversed.

Kids, don't think that you can smoke now and get healthy again by quitting when you're older.  A recent study shows that smoking while in your teens may damage your body's genetic makeup, which can later cause lung cancer.

By now you should know why so many people die because of tobacco use. First they become addicted to the nicotine, but the damage is done by the thousands of chemicals in the smoke of the cigarette. The addiction and the chemicals create the deadly combination.