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How to Live Smoke-free | Never Take That First Puff
Incentive to Quit | Help for Withdrawal | Help Others Quit
Opposition from Tobacco Industry

Go Smoke-free!

How to Help Others Quit Smoking

Why Write to A Smoker?

Smoking is not a hobby; it’s not a habit…it's a deadly addiction.

Because of an obsolete social custom, tobacco is still claiming many good minds and bodies, harming children, and ripping families apart.

Diseases caused by tobacco bring excruciating pain to the smokers and terrible financial, physical, emotional, and social burdens to their families. People who depend on them will suddenly have to take care of them, in addition to trying to fill their shoes.

Why cultivate a person, a business, a country with one hand, and destroy it with the other?

The smoker (tobacco addict) and his family will have a better chance for a healthy life and happy retirement the sooner he or she quits.

Why Write To Someone about Smoking,
instead of Talking with Them?

When you talk to people about sensitive issues, they often get defensive.

When you write, you can take your time and choose your words wisely.

The recipient can read your letter, over and over again. They can consider your request and take it to heart…without any confrontation.

They will be moved that you took the time to write and have a greater sense of the seriousness of the matter.

Points to Consider

Tobacco addicts are people we care about; it’s the tobacco use that’s the problem.

Males, young and old, receive a lot of pressure to smoke. They need praise and support for not smoking.

Nonsmokers need to know that we value, respect, and applaud their choice not to smoke.

Smokers and nonsmokers alike need to know that you value their life, their health, their friendship, and their contribution to family and society…that you care about them.

Speak to their hearts about the real effects of smoking.

* Describe how you’ll feel if they’re not around to share the important events in your life.

* Help them figure out how much they spend on cigarettes every day/ every year, and suggest some interesting things that they could buy or do with that money.

* Remind them about how they are being manipulated, used...and abandoned by the tobacco industry.

* Describe some the nasty diseases that are caused by smoking…not just lung cancer! Don’t forget about blindness, amputation, and sexual impotence.

* Ask them to imagine what their lives will be like if they continue to smoke...how will they spend their money and where will they spend their time?

How might their lives be different if they could their spend that money and time on other things?

* See the list of toxic and carcinogenic ingredients in a cigarette—including chocolate, sugar, and fruit flavors...used to entice children. Print it out and add it your letter.

* For more information to include, see the What you Need To Know section of the website.

* Know that as fewer and fewer people in the Western countries are smoking, the tobacco companies are looking to dump a product that Westerners increasingly don’t want. Don't be a dumping ground.

* Smoking is not good for the economy. Tobacco smoke dulls the mind and addiction skews the thinking process. The act of smoking cuts into the addict's work time. Tobacco robs society of it's best. A thriving economy requires that its people perform at their highest level.

Any economic gains from the sale of tobacco are short-term gains and will be wiped out by the long-term skyrocketing health care costs.

How to Live Smoke-free | Never Take That First Puff
Incentive to Quit | Help for Withdrawal | Help Others Quit
Opposition from Tobacco Industry