Jump to full article: The Panama News (pa), 2009-09-29
Author: W. E. Gutman
Intro: I was 12 when I smoked my first cigarette. . . .
Thirty years (and 500,000 cigarettes) later, coughing and wheezing, unable to climb a flight of stairs without panting, diagnosed with heart disease and other smoking-related disorders, I decided to quit. Cold turkey. . . .
I am now violently allergic to smoke. Smokers are not welcome in my home unless they abstain. I consciously avoid any venue that might expose me to someone's foul exhalations.
Now comes word that the nicotine levels that smokers typically absorb per cigarette rose dramatically in the past 10 years, perpetuating what a Harvard University study funded by the National Cancer Institute describes as a "tobacco pandemic" that makes it even harder for smokers to quit. . . .
Next time you light up, look at yourself in the mirror and ponder this. You are consuming a product manufactured by a gang of criminals dedicated to killing you --- at your own expense. If this ghoulish revelation is not enough to make you mad and encourage you to quit forthwith, you risk joining the 450,000 people who die each year from lung cancer and other diseases related to tobacco use.
Don't say I didn't warn you.
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