If you do not start, you never have to worry about stopping

Every year hundreds of thousands of people around the world die from diseases caused by smoking cigarettes. Smoking causes disease and is a slow way to die. The strain of smoking effects on the body often causes years of suffering. Smoking also contributes to a number of cancers. While you smoke, temporarily increased heart rate and blood pressure can cause heart attacks and stroke. Also, heart disease and strokes are more common among smokers than non-smokers. In younger people, three out of four deaths from heart disease are due to smoking. From the above, smoking kills and that quitting makes sense.

Smoking (Source:http://www.wallsave.com/wallpaper/1680×1050/smoking-hd-place-397661.html)

However, nicotine addiction is a relatively simple process. When people smoke, the nicotine enters the body and activates receptors in the brain. These receptors stimulate the activity of dopamine, which makes people feel good. If the nicotine level drops, the activity of dopamine also decreases. Because your body has become used to the higher activity level of dopamine, people feel the desire to resume smoking. In addition, the nicotine in your body is broken down within a day or so, but the craving for a cigarette remains for months.

I would like to introduce Terrie Hall to those who are making a struggling decision whether to quit or continue smoking.

left: Terrie’s senior year in high school, right: after she started smoking

Terrie started smoking regularly at age 17. She would come to smoke up to two packs a day. In 2001, she was diagnosed with oral cancer at the age of 40. So, she had to go through radiation. The time she was going through radiation, she had a really sore throat and she simply thought that she was just smoking too much. Later that same year, she was diagnosed with throat cancer. The doctors informed her that they would need to remove her voice box, larynx. Unfortunately, cancer has returned numerous times since she was first diagnosed. At 51, she continues to battle tobacco-related illness today.

Terrie is a laryngectomee that she has a hole in her neck now. Therefore, she speaks often with the help of her electrolarynx. These days, she works to educate young people about the dangers and consequences of tobacco use through the tips from former smoker campaign. She joined the ad campaign because it will save lives. She said, “Quit. If you don’t start, you never have to worry about stopping”. She believes that if she could prevent just one person from smoking, then she has done something great.

I think Terrie’s advertisements have the potential to significantly influence smokers at any ages to understand the range and magnitude of smoking-related risks, while encouraging them to quit.

Here’s Terrie’s ad.

KiWon Min

Online references

http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/campaign/tips/stories/terrie.html

http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/16/health/smoking-campaign-hall/index.html