Once again I must fully support a letter appeal below from Cancer Focus NI on preventing our young people from starting to smoke.
I am personally appalled at the number of young people I know who smoke including my own children and some of my grand-children.
[caption id="attachment_54127" align="alignleft" width="200"]
Jim Masson – a past smoker.[/caption]
I find this sickening as I lost both of my parent’s to lung cancer. Had my parents been alive today they could have spent a few years with even my children and grand-children before they finally passed away. This has left me feelings of loss and deep frustration, even failure!
A death from smoking-related cancer is to me a premature death. It is preventable probably in many cases by simply not smoking. More must be done to attack this scourge in our society. It must be rooted out.
And I am fully aware that many adolescents start smoking tobacco when they are introduced to smoking dope. It is a statistic that when they eventually move through this rite of passage, it is the girls who are left with a higher propensity to nicotine addiction after smoking joints which many say are ‘harmless’. Nicotine is a carcinogenic substance and that is a fact.
I saw once in the medical museum in Foresterhill Hospital in Aberdeen two lungs – one healthy, the other cancerous – the latter was black, shrivelled, disgusting, and I could not understand how anyone could knowingly do that to themselves.
It stopped me from smoking immediately. Yes… I was a smoker !
Maybe we need more shock treatment like this in schools etc to get this reality across to our younger generation. There is nothing ‘cool’ about lung cancer or other smoking related diseases. It is largely preventable, especially if parents themselves take a stronger hand in their children’s welfare.
Please support Cancer Focus NI is their campaign.
Jim Masson
(Down News).
Dear Sir,
re: smoking and children
Seventeen children in Northern Ireland become new smokers every day, which is a very alarming trend.
Cancer Focus Northern Ireland believes that standardised packaging of tobacco products will help protect our future generations from being seduced by the tobacco industry marketing. The move to plainer packs will help safeguard children and young people from the devastating effects of smoking and encourage adult smokers to stop.
The Westminster Government has yet to make a final decision on standardised packaging – but time is running out if new regulations are to be introduced in this parliament’s lifetime.
With a general election looming, any new regulations must be put before parliament by mid-January so that a vote can be taken in March.
We urge our MPs, Peers, Executive and MLA’s and other interested parties to keep up the pressure on the Government to introduce these measures to help keep our children safe.
Standardised packaging could and should become a proud legacy of this Parliament.
Yours, Gerry McElwee Head of Cancer Prevention, Cancer Focus NI.]]>
