Dear Future President,

Do you like taking walks or going for a run? Just imagine it for a moment, walking through the park with the sun warm on your face one moment then the shadows cooling you off the next. Hearing the leaves rustle, smelling the fragrant aroma of the flowers on the breeze coupled with decaying leaves and tobacco smoke. The smoke stinging your nose making you change your course to upwind of the smoke so it doesn't trigger your asthma. Sounds nice, right? Well everything except the last part.

Do you value your health and the health of those around you? The effects smoking has on people's health, can lead to death in certain cases. A parent who smokes introduces their child to 250 lethal chemicals. And if you are pregnant and smoking it can have terrible effects on your unborn child, it could cause them to be born early or be underweight, it also doubles the chances of being stillborn. Can you imagine the pain of losing your child due to the fact that you smoke?

One of the chemicals in tobacco is nicotine. The way that nicotine affects your body is that when you inhale the smoke the nicotine quickly enters your bloodstream and immediately stimulates your adrenal gland (produces hormones that help you with stress) and releases adrenaline, which increases your heartbeat, blood pressure, and breathing. Nicotine can be addictive, and is similar to cocaine and heroin in which it affects the brain pathways which control pleasure.

There are not really any health benefits in smoking but there are lots of health problems caused by smoking that affect both smokers and non-smokers. And it’s not just the nicotine in tobacco that are causing the problems. The tar in tobacco can cause an increased risk of lung cancer, emphysema (a condition in which the lungs are damaged and enlarged which causes breathlessness), and bronchial disorders. People who don’t smoke but are exposed to smoke can develop health problems such as: increase in the risk of heart disease, and lung cancer.

Children whose parents smoke are more likely to smoke as adults and thus have the same health problems as their parents. People are always talking about how older kids and adults have to set a good example for younger kids. Smoking can put them at serious risk and not just because of second-hand smoke. Kids see, kids do./Do you care about future generations? Do you want them to be healthy? Then please, at the very least, think about this and think about what can be done to help.

Sincerely,

Jilleen M.