The Myths of Smoking......

From the desk of a really nice and trusting woman ,Who, should have been told the truth years before she was old enough to become addicted ....

Dear Tobacco Companies,
I really feel that you lied to me for years... Shouldn't you be held accountable?
I don't understand why you never told me that smoking wasn't pretty , popular , deadly , addictive and that years later I would be left not being able to walk without needing to stop to catch my breath OR to carry an inhaler for the Asthma I now have.....
I also cant understand, How you, the people making so much money off my lungs, cant help pay my medical bills ........ ( I don't have medical Insurance any more , I can't afford it & I don't qualify for Medicaid )
I resent that until I was about 30, I never realized you were killing me with lies that you had no remorse in telling .....
I am really mad that if someone hadn't made you tell the truth, you would have kept telling me and millions of others lies .....
I am even madder since I found out that there are 599 additives approved by the US Government for use in the manufacturing of cigarettes.
(go here for a complete list of the things they put in cigarettes)
If I were your Mother I'd be ashamed of you and turn you over my knee or better yet I'd tell you to be adults about this and help stop the growing , manufacturing and selling of all tobacco products in the world !
Sign me ,
A woman who will sooner or later die of lung cancer, Thanks in part to you......


These are some vintage advertisements I found on the Internet. And I thought ,Why? Why did they lie to us for so many years and why did they make advertisements like these look so glamorous and cute.....

They even stooped to using Babies in their lies.....


And Future Presidents......

They even used the very persons( Doctors) who would later say : Smoking Does cause cancer and You should not do it.


You may ask why I feel the need to post this , Well I am 48 years old , I have COPD and I'm certain I got this from smoking......
My Mom married my Step Father when I was around 7 . At age 8 we moved back to his home in the State of Georgia . His Family were Farmers and one of the crops they grew was tobacco .
My Step Father was the kind of man who thought, if you have Children and a Farm, they should work just like everyone else to make a living . In other words, he put us to work in our spare
time , Vacation days and Summers..... We learned to grow it , to harvest it and to sew it on sticks to hang for curing in "pole" barns. My Step Father and His Family got paid by the government to grow it . Who wouldn't, it was almost free money. Why would the government do that , They should be held responsible for health issues related to smoking also.

At around age 13, I began sneaking tobacco with my Cousins and making crude cigars to smoke. They did it and I wanted to be like them since I had the feeling that being a step anything wasn't good enough.
By age 15 My Step Father was buying my Cigarettes partly because He caught me stealing them and partly for reasons I cant say at this time, I have to learn to write better before I go into that subject....
No one at any time said they would kill you , I know now later in life, that they were lied to also and wouldn't have even thought of it.
It still wasn't right and I think that parents should be more responsible for their Children's up bringing.
By age 29 I had quit and re started 20 times at least. I could never do it . I had become addicted to smoking and it was worse than any other drug I had ever played with. I had Drank & used street drugs BUT nothing has been as hard to rid myself of as cigarettes......
I am Drug and alcohol free now but not smoke free, I have tried quitting cold turkey,quit smoking programs, pills , patches & lozenges... Nothing has worked ... I am addicted to cigarettes and I feel that I have given it my all and nothing , not even the threat of death has worked....
I know that some will criticize me and tell me I'm weak, but if you could walk in my shoes maybe not.
I know that many of you will say , You're not strong enough , You didn't try hard enough , You don't really want to quit & when you do , you will be able to.........
Maybe you will be one of the many people that just say : Shut up you decided to smoke OR This isn't my problem and hit the old X button.... OR
Maybe you will be one of the people, like me, who has smoked for so long that we have health issues.
I realize that after age 18 I was responsible for my actions and that I chose to smoke , I own that and I am willing to stand up to that. It doesn't mean that I and countless others are not addicted to smoking and I think some of it stems from the lies that were told to us as young ones and I also think that addiction to cigarettes probably is reinforced by whats put into cigarettes. I feel that it really is an important issue that needs serious changes in our governing structure. It seems to me that there have been, to little to late actions by the parties that are responsible for setting our laws ....

At the time of this post I had been trying to quit smoking yet again but ....
I started smoking again because I got stressed out and that's my only crutch. I think its a battle I will have to fight until the day I die.
I am trying to quit again and I hope one of these days I get it right.......

Peace.....