"He Wanted You To Know"

Bryan Curtis started smoking at 13, never thinking that 20 years later it would kill him and leave a wife and children alone. In his last weeks, he set out with a message for young people.

ST. PETERSBURG -- Cigarette smoke hangs in the air in the room where Bryan Lee Curtis lies dying of lung cancer.

His head, bald from chemotherapy, lolls on a pillow. The bones of his cheeks and shoulders protrude under taut skin. His eyes are open, but he can no longer respond to his mother or his wife, Bobbie, who married him in a makeshift ceremony in this room three weeks ago after doctors said there was no hope.

In Bryan's emaciated hands, Bobbie has propped a photograph taken just two months ago. It shows a muscular and seemingly healthy Bryan holding his 2-year-old son, Bryan Jr. In the picture, he is 33. He turned 34 on May 10.

A pack of cigarettes and a lighter sit on a table near Bryan's bed in his mother's living room. Even though tobacco caused the cancer now eating through his lungs and liver, Bryan smoked until a week ago, when it became impossible.

Across the room, a 20-year-old nephew crushes out a cigarette in a large glass ashtray where the butt joins a dozen others. Bobbie Curtis says she'll try to stop after the funeral, but right now, it's just too difficult. Same for Bryan's mother, Louise Curtis.

"I just can't do it now," she says, although she hopes maybe she can after the funeral.

Bryan knew how hard it is to quit. But when he learned he would die because of his habit, he thought maybe he could persuade at least a few kids not to pick up that first cigarette. Maybe if they could see his sunken cheeks, how hard it was becoming to breathe, his shriveled body, it might scare them enough.

So a man whose life was otherwise unremarkable set out in the last few weeks of his life with a mission.

*****

Bryan started when he was just 13, building up to more than two packs a day. He talked about quitting from time to time, but never seriously tried.

Plenty of time for that, he figured. Older people got cancer. Not people in their 30s, not people who worked in construction, as a roofer, as a mechanic.

He had no health insurance. But he was more worried about his mother, 57, who had smoked since she was 25.

"He would say, "Mom, don't worry about me. Worry about yourself. I'm healthy,' " Louise Curtis remembers. "You think this would happen later, when you're 60 or 70 years old, not when you're his age."

He knew, only a few days after he went to the hospital on April 2 with severe abdominal pain, how wrong he had been. He had oat cell lung cancer that had spread to his liver. He probably had not had it long. Also called small cell lung cancer, it's an aggressive killer that usually claims the lives of its victims within a few months.

While it seems unusual to the Curtis family, Dr. Jeffrey Paonessa, Bryan's oncologist, said he is seeing more lung cancer in young adults.

"We've seen lung cancer earlier and earlier because people are starting to smoke earlier and earlier," Paonessa said. Chemotherapy sometimes slows the process, but had little effect in Bryan's case, he said.

Bryan also knew, a few days after the diagnosis, that he wanted somehow to try to save at least one kid from the same fate. He sat down and talked with Bryan Jr. and his 9-year-old daughter, Amber, who already had been caught once with a cigarette. But he wanted to do more. Somehow, he had to get his story out.

When he still had some strength to leave the house, kids would stare.

"They'd come up and look at him because he looked so strange," Louise Curtis said. "He'd look at them and say, "This is what happens to you when you smoke.'

"The kids would say, "Oh, man. I can't believe it,' " Louise Curtis said.

In the last few weeks, Bryan's mother has been the agent for his mission to accomplish some good with the tragedy. She has called newspapers and radio and television stations, seeking someone willing to tell her son's story, willing to help give him the one thing he wanted before he died. Bryan never got to tell his story to the public. He spoke for the last time an hour before a visit from a Times reporter and photographer.

"I'm too skinny. I can't fight anymore," he whispered to his mother at 9 a.m. June 3. He died that day at 11:56 a.m., just nine weeks after the diagnosis.

Bryan Lee Curtis Sr. was buried at Memorial Park Cemetery in St. Petersburg on June 8, a rare cloudy day that threatened rain.

At the funeral service at nearby Blount, Curry and Roel Funeral Home, Bryan's casket was open and 50 friends and relatives could see the devastating effects of the cancer.

Addiction is more powerful.

As the graveside ritual ended, a handful of relatives backed away from the gathering, pulled out packs of cigarettes and lit up.

Smoking Kills

Smoking kills. There's no two ways about it. The question is, what are you, as parents, doing to prevent your children from smoking. Today, on No Tobacco Day, let's take a look at the dangers of indulging in this habit.

Children are constantly subjected to peer pressure - from the time they begin school, till the time they leave college or maybe beyond, friends and acquaintances will yeild significant influence over their decisions - whch may sometimes cause them to take the wrong steps. The role of parenting is crucial as far as peer pressure is concerned, because if a parent instills self-esteem and confidence in a child, he would be able to say NO to his peers without any fear of ridicule. And today, on No Tobacco Day 2002, let's teach our children the harmful effects of tobacco, and to say NO to a friend offering a cigarette.

However, practice what you preach. Do you smoke? Perhaps it's time you quit. You say you only smoke 3-5 cigarettes a day… so that's an acceptable number. When you consider that there are those who smoke two packs a day, 5 cigarettes are fine - your body can handle it, right? Wrong. Dead wrong.

With every cigarette you smoke, you're causing damage to your health. So if you smoke a few cigarettes a day, you'll be causing less damage to your lungs than someone who smokes a pack or two a day, but you WILL be causing damage. And by watching you smoke, you children will also get the idea that it's okay to smoke. After all, daddy smokes and if daddy can do it, so can I. Some role model you turned out to be, huh? And if you stick to those 4 a day and feel your health is fine - when your kids start smoking they might not be so particular, and those 4 cigarettes a day could turn into 40. Scary, isn't it? If you're still having second thoughts about quitting, it always helps to make an informed decision rather than an ignorant one. So if you choose to smoke, make your choice an informed one. Here's the lowdown of the fag.

Every cigarette you smoke reduces your lifespan by 11 minutes. The earlier calculation estimated 5 minutes, but with the life-span of non-smokers increasing, this figure has grown to 11 minutes.

A non-cigarette smoker will live a healthier life, subject to fewer diseases.

Take a look at just some of the 4000 chemicals that are in a cigarette.

• Formaldehyde - used to preserve dead bodies
• Lead
• Mercury
• Benzene - used in dyes
• Cadmium - used to make batteries
• Nicotine - the chemical that gives you a 'hit' and makes cigarettes addictive
• Tar - transports other chemicals to your bloodstream, gets deposited in your lungs and stains your teeth.
• Acetone - used in nailpolish remover
• Carbon Monoxide - hardens the arteries and causes heart problems

By smoking, not only are you harming yourself, but you are harming others around you by producing secondhand smoke, which will be inhaled by those around you.

However, if you have been smoking for many years and suddenly quit, don't expect yourself you bounce back into the pink of health. That's not going to happen. The nicotine would have already caused substantial and possibly irreversable damage to your body and your lungs, so have realistic expectations. But this doesn't mean that quitting won't have any benefits at all. It's never to late to quit and no matter when you quit, your body will thank you for it. You will notice:

• An improvement in your sense of smell
• An imporvement in your sense of taste
• Your breath will smell cleaner and fresher
• Blood circulation will pick up
• Risk of contracting cancer and heart disease will improve
  

Cigarette Smoking and Emotions

Nicotine is one of the fastest-acting drugs known to man. When a smoker inhales tobacco smoke, the nicotine is absorbed into the bloodstream and the effects are felt almost immediately.

Conversely, levels of nicotine drop quickly to about one-quarter within one hour after finishing a cigarette; hence most smokers will think they need a cigarette every hour on average.

There are people who has smoked 40 cigarettes a day for over 50 years and lived to be 80. Indeed, people in this category rarely had a day's illness in his life. He would never have entertained the idea of becoming a non-smoker. Do not be fooled into thinking that you'll get away with this too. Such people are the exemption.

Excuses, Excuses...

When you are a smoker it is very easy to find excuses for why you smoke and to believe that it is the answer to all your problems. When you are unable to concentrate, you are convinced that you will be able to concentrate when you light up a cigarette.

When someone irritates you, you are convinced that you will feel more relaxed when you light up a cigarette. When first you become a non-smoker, everything that goes wrong is blamed on the fact that you are not smoking.

Your partner urges you to buy some cigarettes because you are irritable and no longer a pleasure to be with. Do any of these scenarios sound familiar?

The fact is, smoking never made anyone perfect. Even smokers get irritable, have trouble concentrating and are not always a pleasure to be with. You can't pin these or any other problems on the fact that you are a non-smoker.

You have not changed, your personal situations have probably not changed, you will still get cross, but it is very easy to blame these emotions on being a non-smoker because we are constantly bombarded with information about how smoking relaxes you and releases stress. We tell ourselves that it does seem to be a consensus of opinion so it must be right!

Smokers are always on a roller-coaster with their emotions, agitated when they cannot get a cigarette if they want one and at the same time agitated when they smoke. This is due, to a large extent, by the very nature of the habit and the frustration caused by being controlled by an outside force, something that feels beyond your control.

Cigarette Smoking Statistics

Yet most smokers continue to find excuses to put off the day they'll become non-smokers. Smokers also act under the illusion that the innumerable statistics written about the dangers of smoking are overstated. But if you truly do your research, you will find alarming statistics that should frighten anyone who smokes.

You might even think that these smoking statistics alone are enough to frighten anyone into either becoming a non-smoker or never to start smoking in the first place. Well, smokers do not want to know about the statistics until they decide to become non smokers.

If they really believed that cigarettes were going to kill them, give them cancer or be instrumental in the amputation of a leg, would they smoke another cigarette?

Don't Let Your Guard down Just because you’ve Stopped Smoking for a While

After you have successfully stopped smoking for a while, you may feel quitting has been easier than you expected. Not that it's been easy altogether, but it still has not been as hard as you feared. You may now go for several hours, maybe most of the day or evening, without even thinking about a cigarette.

Here's the downside of feeling too confident: You're at a party. You're feeling good. Maybe you've had a drink or two. Someone offers you a cigarette. You think, "I'm not having any trouble. I'll have a couple tonight and go back to non-smoking tomorrow. Maybe stay with
a routine of only smoking at parties."

One of the first times I quit, I decided I'd only smoke on weekends. Soon, I was trying to convince myself that the weekend begins on Wednesday evening and ends the following Wednesday morning!

Vigilance - that's the word for the next few months. You don't have to spend every waking moment managing your quitting, but you do have to stay on your toes, vigilant, alert to the temptations or situations that can mess up your plan. Give your nonsmoking the vigilance you would for anything else that is very important.

Source: http://www.stop-smoking-tips.com/articles/cigarette-smoking-emotions.html

hose Who Smoke Cigarettes the Most are Often Mentally ill

The rate of tobacco smoking is much higher among those with mental illness than among the general population, and those who are mentally ill also smoke more cigarettes and have more trouble quitting, according to a Washington Post editorial by Steven A. Schroeder, director of the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center.

In the United States, between 50 and 80 percent of all people with mental illness are smokers, whereas only 20 percent of the general population smokes. Those with mental illness also smoke more cigarettes per day than other smokers, and are more likely to smoke cigarettes all the way down to the filters. The combination of these two factors means that 44 percent of all cigarettes sold in the United States are sold to people who are mentally ill.

Those who are mentally ill also have more trouble quitting, succeeding at less than half the rate of the general population.

The high rate of tobacco use among the mentally ill is thought to contribute substantially to the lowered life expectancy among that population; people with mental illnesses die an average of 25 years sooner than the general population.

Among the general population, smokers die an average of 10 to 15 years earlier than non-smokers. Approximately 440,000 people die of smoking-induced causes in the United States every year.

According to Schroeder, part of the reason for the prevalence of smoking among the mentally ill is that mental health hospitals have a long tradition of using cigarettes as a way to control patients, proffering smoking breaks as rewards and withholding cigarettes as punishment. This trend is in the process of changing, however, and more than 50 percent of all mental health institutions in the United States are now entirely smoke-free.

In March 2003, 28 organizations came together to form the National Mental Health Partnership for Wellness and Smoking Cessation, of which the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center is a member.

India Joining the No Smoking Campaign. But Will it be Fruitful!

The anti smoking measures have been very effectively implemented in the developed countries. Though the smokers didn’t exactly welcome the anti smoking measures, yet they had no other choice but to kneel down before the higher and the more powerful authorities. Huge penalties were labeled for the law breachers and hence the smokers didn’t have much of a choice. They had to agree to the anti smoking measures, if not for themselves than for the non smoking community which is actually a minority in countries like the US and the UK. Nevertheless these efforts paid well as the rate of second hand smoking saw an encouraging drop.

In the underdeveloped countries a smoke free environment is not only a far fetched dream but it is actually a dream that not many people dream. People and the authorities feel that there are other important matters to look into and hence quit smoking can wait. It is actually a matter of debate because after all, the first responsibility of any government is to protect its citizens. Therefore, protecting people from the harmful effects of the smoke also come among the priorities of the government. However, for some inexplicable reason it seems that the governments of most of the third world countries doesn’t take smoking as an important enough issue that could command priority. The matters of defense and internal peace and equanimity have to be looked into first. Everything else can wait. This is one logic that cannot be negated altogether but it is time that the governments of these countries give equal attention to the matters of public health. Smoking is the most preventable cause of death in quite a few countries and definitely one of the most potent preventable causes of death in the whole world. It not only destroys human resources but an astronomic figure of wealth also. Hence it is time for all the governments of the world to take up the task of no smoking in all earnestness. Implementing bills to the affect of no smoking is not that a hard task. If the members in the government are like minded and wise enough, implementing smoking bans won’t be an issue. This is one anti smoking measure that doesn’t eat up much of national wealth and hence is advisable and appropriate for the third world countries or the poor countries in general. These countries have an overwhelming rate of smoking and the people here are also not aware of quit smoking ways like the anti smoke drugs. Chantix is a member of the quit smoking drugs. People have seen favorable effects by using chantix. The internet is the best place to know more about chantix and it is also the best place to buy chantix. Without much of a fuss and absolutely no waste of time and labor and sometimes even at a low price one can buy chantix online. The one thing that is common between buying chantix online and offline is the chantix prescription.

The majority of the smokers in the third world countries have no access to such sophisticated ways of quitting smoke. Hence bans are the most preferred. Recently in Delhi, the national capital of India, the police ordered every commercial outlet to display signboards of “no smoking” and on violating this rule penalties amounting to Rs 500 will be labeled on the violator. Though this is a very welcome step but the problem lies in the fact that in countries like India most of the laws remain in the paper only. The rules are almost never translated into reality. If this state of affairs continues, than I am afraid most of the anti smoking rules will also eventually ordain only the papers!

Smoking: Why the first puff can get you hooked

For many, the first fag is just for the sake of trying out smoking, but for some, this first puff turns out to be a life time of addiction. Scientists have now attributed this tendency to the brain's procession of 'rewarding' and addictive properties of nicotine.

In their new study, researchers at The University of Western Ontario have said that the mechanism behind the brain's processing of the 'rewarding' and addictive properties of nicotine, may explain why some people seemingly become hooked with their first smoke.

Led by Steven Laviolette of the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, the study could lead to new therapies to prevent nicotine dependence and to treat nicotine withdrawal when smokers try to quit.

"Nicotine interacts with a variety of neurochemical pathways within the brain to produce its rewarding and addictive effects. However, during the early phase of tobacco exposure, many individuals find nicotine highly unpleasant and aversive, whereas others may become rapidly dependent on nicotine and find it highly rewarding. We wanted to explore that difference," explained Laviolette.

The scientists particularly found one brain pathway that uses the neurotransmitter 'dopamine' to transmit signals related to nicotine's rewarding properties.

This pathway is called the 'mesolimbic' dopamine system and is involved in the addictive properties of many drugs of abuse, including cocaine, alcohol and nicotine.
"While much progress has been made in understanding how the brain processes the rewarding effects of nicotine after the dependence is established, very little is known about how the mesolimbic dopamine system may control the initial vulnerability to nicotine; that is, why do some individuals become quickly addicted to nicotine while others do not, and in some cases, even find nicotine to be highly aversive," said Laviolette.

The team then identified which specific dopamine receptor subtype controlled the brain's initial sensitivity to nicotine's rewarding and addictive properties and were able to manipulate these receptors to control whether the nicotine is processed as rewarding or aversive.

"Importantly, our findings may explain an individual's vulnerability to nicotine addiction, and may point to new pharmacological treatments for the prevention of it, and the treatment of nicotine withdrawal," said Laviolette.

The paper is published in the latest issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.

Children Smoking - Bad influence - Hope Its not ur kid one day!