Education: The Key to Smoking Prevention
             If I offered you a stick of gum, would you take it? What if I told you that for every minute you chewed that piece of gum you would take one minute off of your life, would you still chew it? I don't think many of you would. You would probably decide that you could live the rest of your life without ever chewing another piece of gum. No, I'm not telling you that a pack of chewing gum will shorten your life, but I want you to feel the same amount of shock and fear when you are offered a cigarette. One of them will definitely shorten your life considerably. This is a well known fact, but as members of today's society, we have become numb to it. I want to re-educate you on the reasons not to smoke, encourage you to never smoke a cigarette, and if you already do, quit now before it's too late. As the Phillip Morris ad states, "There is no safe cigarette." This is obvious in the fact that cigarettes cause a number of health problems, they are a financial burden to the smoker and to society, and they cause harm to others through secondhand smoke.
             I have witnessed firsthand the dangers of and consequences of smoking. Last year my grandfather had quadruple bypass heart surgery. He had been a smoker since the age of 12. He is now 67 years old. The consequences of smoking for 55 years finally caught up with him. As he explained to me, "I thought it would never happen to me (Interview)." That is the problem with most smokers, they always think it will happen to someone else and not them. The realty is that no one is immune from the dangers of smoking. It took my grandfather 55 years and major heart surgery to make
             him give up smoking "cold turkey." Because of my experience, I want to educate you about some of the facts about smoking. This will enable you to make an informed decision not to begin smoking, or if you are alread...