At 2.6 years quit I rarely think of smoking anymore. If I do entertain the concept of smoking I almost always cancel out the thought instantly. The most important aspect of the quit process is to become educated about what smoking does to the human body.

As a young quit I forced myself to watch a Lung Bronchoscopy of a patient with lung cancer. He was a 57 year old man who had a 75 pack year history[1], with carcinoma in the upper portion of his right lung. Or for those who think that you have a lifetime before you have to quit smoking, check out Brandon Carmichael at: http://www.smokinggotme.com

In hospital settings Ive watched patients struggle with oxygen tanks and gasp to catch even one breath. I have also stood helpless as a lung cancer patient coughed up bloody phlegm while choking on his own body fluids. Ive listened to the whistling and wheezing while calculating the buildup of bluish discoloration of oxygen starved faces and clubbed fingers. How much longer will they or you suffer from smoking-related diseases, gasping for the air that that is essential to every human in order to survive?

Replacing wispy shrouds of romanticized longings for the daily cigarette ebbed; craves were slowly replaced over time with alpha iron armor structured in smoking-related disease research. I began to see myself as a female combatant who existed in a world that was torn between personal inalienable rights and too much governmental control. I also learned that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness could not be achieved at the cost of human addiction.

Somewhere a line has to be drawn. Should we give the unborn, babies, toddlers, children, and nonsmokers who live on our planet the right to live and breathe in both private and public air space? Or should we simply delegate the right for smokers to pollute our air space? In 2006 the Surgeon General released a new report on secondhand smoke, which stated that there is no safe level of exposure to the more than 4,000 chemicals, including 11 known human carcinogens in secondhand smoke[2]. The World Health Organization states:

Tobacco is the second major cause of death in the world. It is currently responsible for the death of one in ten adults worldwide (about 5 million deaths each year). If current smoking patterns continue, it will cause some 10 million deaths each year by 2020. Half the people that smoke today -that is about 650 million people- will eventually be killed by tobacco[3].

If you choose to smoke your smoke is a toxic air contaminant. Be kind to yourself, other people, and to our planet. Just dont smoke.

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[1] Those who smoke 1 pack a day for 75 years or 3 packs a day for 25 years.

[2] The American Legacy Foundation

[3] WHO (World Health Organization), Tobacco Free Initiative (TFI)