Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

After all these years, it still amazes me that people still smoke cigarettes; I mean, come on, there has been proof after proof of the hazards of smoking, and yet people still do it.

One of the worst parts is that young people that turn the age to buy a pack of cigarettes smoke. So think about this logically. For years the chemicals in cigarettes have been public knowledge. Yet, when someone turns 18, the first act as an adult is to buy cigarettes; OK, that cannot be very smart when in fact, they know without a shadow of a doubt what cigarettes can do to the human body.

You must understand I know what it is to smoke cigarettes, I smoked four packs of none filtered cigarettes a day for years, and then I got smart. I wouldn’t say I liked the fact that cigarettes controlled me; I couldn’t stop, and yet I wanted to quit, so I decided and won.

There are many more reasons not to smoke than they are to smoke. Aside from the fact that every pack bought helps support rich, corrupt, greedy people to go on lavish vacations and buy expensive automobiles, all the while cigarette prices keep rising, is that where our society is today? We leave the thinking to other people; all the time, we march straight off a cliff while the people we continue to make wealthy light cigars off our backs as we fall to our deaths.

Just look at a few of what these tremendous little sticks we light and place between our lips contain.

Cigarette smoke contains over 4,000 chemicals, including 43 known cancer-causing (carcinogenic) compounds and 400 other toxins. These cigarette ingredients include nicotine, tar, and carbon monoxide, as well as formaldehyde, ammonia, hydrogen cyanide, arsenic, and DDT.

Nicotine: Nicotine is highly addictive. Smoke containing nicotine is inhaled into the lungs, reaching your brain in just six seconds. In small doses it acts as a stimulant to the brain. In large quantities, it’s a depressant, inhibiting the flow of signals between nerve cells. In even larger doses, it’s a lethal poison, affecting the heart, blood vessels, and hormones. Nicotine in the bloodstream acts to make the smoker feel calm.

Everything about a cigarette today is designed to hook you and then kill you! Think about it! And then, if you have children and they are inhaling your smoke, when a cigarette is smoked, the amount of tar inhaled into the lungs increases, and the last puff contains more than twice as much tar as the first puff. Carbon monoxide makes it harder for red blood cells to carry oxygen throughout the body. Tar is a mixture of substances that together form a sticky mass in the lungs.

Most of the chemicals inhaled in cigarette smoke stay in the lungs. The more you inhale, the better it feels – and the greater the damage to your lungs. Then when exhaled, the rest goes into the lungs of your children, so now you are not only killing yourself, you are killing your kids as well. I can say all of this because I beat the tobacco industry by quitting their deadly product; now the question is, are you strong enough to quit, or are you too weak to stop and let them keep controlling your body? Just something to ponder.