National non-smoking week

A smoker shivers off the frigid cold standing outside the college doors in a cloud of secondhand smoke. The last few gray puffs drift away before that cigarette is crushed into the snow and the smoker rushes back into the warmth.

If you talk to that person, chances are they’ve heard all you’d have to tell them about smoking: the health risks, the reasons not to smoke. Every cliché in the book has been told a thousand times. So what do you tell a smoker that hasn’t been said before?

The truth is, there isn’t much left to tell a smoker. Most of them know the great risk of lung cancer and heart failure.

They’ve read on cigarette packages that secondhand smoke is harmful to those around them, especially children. They’re well aware that nicotine is one of the most addictive drugs out there. What they don’t read on packages they hear from health services that advertise the downfalls as much as tobacco companies market the illusion of how smoking makes you fit in with everyone else.

Realistically, they know it all. Telling someone this who has been smoking for over 30 years is totally different from talking to a teenager who has yet to pick up the habit.

If people want a smoke-free world, the key to it is preventing the up and coming crowds from smoking. This applies to drugs and alcohol as well. If teenagers and young adults are forewarned of the health risks and hazards to their lives, then it is left to them to make the choice of whether it is something they want.

After all, it all comes down to making the choice. Once informed properly of what smoking does to yourself and others, only you can make the choice if you want to take that risk. Right or wrong after that, it’s still an informed choice.

Last week, the Lethbridge and Area Tobacco Reduction Coalition visited schools to spread awareness of the effects of smoking. Alberta is three per cent higher than the national average for having young smokers. In the province, 26 per cent of people aged 20-24 smoke.

Telling an old smoker to stop smoking is likely a waste of time. However, the LATRC has the right idea. Young smokers who haven’t started the habit or those who might have just picked it up are more likely to quit before they start.

 

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