Don’t tell youth that smoking is a joy!

Dec 13, 2001

SIR— I read the amusing Lifestyle story on “A smoker’s world keeps shrinking” and felt compelled to share a few observations.

SIR— I read the amusing Lifestyle story on “A smoker’s world keeps shrinking” and felt compelled to share a few observations. You repeatedly tell readers, most importantly Uganda’s youth, that smoking is just “a habit”. In truth, you are physically dependent upon what may be the world’s most addictive substance — nicotine. Yes, you are a “real” drug addict living from fix to fix. Among regular users, alcohol’s addiction rate is 10%, powdered cocaine’s 15%, while nicotine physically addicts over 70% of regular users. Most smokers labour under a false belief that a drug must be capable of producing an intoxicating effect or “high” in order to be addictive. The true measure of dependency is a drug’s ability to permanently captivate and enslave certain brain neurotransmitters — most notably dopamine. You tell Uganda’s youth that “enjoy” smoking, and I have no doubt but that you believe your words. But your own words tell us that you dread trips during which you’re unable to smoke. If you’re not addicted to nicotine, then why would long flights bother you? What normal person would by-pass the comfort of a dining room to eat outside or regularly leave work to suck 3,500 chemical particles and 500 gases — including 44 known cancer causing agents — into their lungs? If you feel like a leper when hearded into small smoke-filled rooms with other smokers, then why would you do so unless addicted? You don’t smoke because you enjoy smoking, you smoke because you enjoy avoiding what happens when you don't smoke — the onset of anxieties of early physical withdrawal. Unless you’re smoking as you read these words, your blood nicotine level is again falling. Soon it will be time to feed your addiction. This never-ending cycle is destroying your lungs, clogging your arteries, and permanently damaging multiple areas of your brain. Please don’t teach our children that you’re destroying “you” because you enjoy it. I teach how to quit smoking at free live two-week clinics here in the United States and on the internet at www.WhyQuit.com. Two-and-a-half years ago, I was just like you, only worse. I too had convinced myself that I enjoyed my three packs a day. I was terribly mistaken. John R. Polito Founder, www.WhyQuit.com

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