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Friday, April 18, 2008

Smoking or non-smoking

“Almost everyone knows that smoking causes cancer, emphysema, and heart disease; that it can shorten your life by 10 years or more; and that the habit can cost a smoker thousands of dollars a year. So how come people are still lighting up? The answer, in a word, is addiction.” Adapted from www.kidshealth.org

Smoking is one of those addictions that I believe the world does more to encourage it than anything else. Have you ever wondered why after all these years we still have most cars being made with cigar lighters? Let us say then that the car cigar lighter socket serves other purposes a part from lighting cigars. Then why have they retained the name, “Cigar lighters?”

I had a brother-in-law who died two years ago as a result of lung disease he developed from his terrible smoking addiction. We are being told today that second hand smoking is much more harmful than previously thought.
The health experts have blamed 'passive' smoking for the deaths of up to forty thousand non-smokers annually, in the US alone. That is almost the number of women who die each year from breast cancer.

The other truth is that no form of addiction is healthy. We do so much to protect our children from these evils, who are daily bombarded with these unnecessary temptations. This makes our job twice as difficult. If smoking is really so bad for us, then why does it seem the crusaders’ only intentions are to encourage this destructive habit?

As people who are committed to the survival of the institution called, “family”, then it behooves us to discourage our family members who struggle with this addiction. As a singer, smoking disturbs my singing mechanisms. I have also noticed that more than ever the younger children are adapting the habit of smoking. I am all for non-smoking.