Throw Away Those Cigarettes, No Butts About It

Andrea Flynn, Corner Post Managing Editor

September 19, 2002 - I cannot comprehend why people of my generation smoke cigarettes.

They look unattractive, they smell bad, and worst of all, they're ruining any chances they have of being healthy.

Our grandparents had an excuse for smoking - back when they started, no one had any idea how dangerous cigarettes were. Our parents knew more about the dangers of cigarettes than their parents, but they still lacked the wealth of information we have today.

The bottom line: if you smoke, you are making a huge mistake. It might even cost you your life.

Diseases directly caused by smoking include coronary heart disease, cancer (lung, mouth, pancreas, bladder, stomach and kidney, to name a few), chronic bronchitis, emphysema and peptic ulcers. Notice I said, "Diseases directly caused by smoking include…" That means I'm not even mentioning all of the terrible, and often life-threatening, results of smoking.

You know that commercial that shows a huge rat dying on a public street? He holds up a sign that says cyanide, a chemical in cigarettes, is also found in rat poison. Check with the AMC Cancer Research Center, and you'll discover he's right. Other chemicals you inhale when you smoke that cigarette include ammonia (found in toilet bowl cleaner and other cleaning supplies), hydrogen cyanide (used as poison in gas chambers), Polonium 210 (nuclear waste), and carbon monoxide (found in car exhaust and deadly if inhaled at high levels). Did you notice that word "include" again?

Now that I've listed some of the terrible things cigarettes can do to smokers, I have to respond to the argument that everyone has the right to put whatever they want into their own bodies, no matter how toxic and deadly. In some cases, this is true. But not when your actions are harming everyone around you.

When you smoke, people within several feet of you breathe the same dangerous chemicals you do. Therefore, your secondhand smoke can be deadly.

You may think people should mind their own business and let you smoke in peace, but in my opinion, that's insensitive and cruel. Your smoking could cost someone his good health, or even his life.

There's nothing I hate worse than getting stuck in a crowd of students on campus and not being able to maneuver my way around the smoker in front of me. But hey, at least I'm getting pretty good at holding my breath for long periods of time. (I usually inhale deeply when I'm approximately 20 feet behind a smoker and don't exhale until I'm about that same distance in front of her.)

So please, if you won't quit smoking to save your own health and your own life, do it for mine.


Originally posted 9/20/02


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