Done!
"Please vote "NO" for S.982 - FDA tobacco Bill.
I am not a smoker (I quit 3 months ago), but I can tell you that this bill is going about everything the wrong way. This bill could hurt tobacco farmers and endanger 65,000 jobs in states that already have an 11% unemployment rate. With the economy the way that it is right now, this is the last thing we need. Also, there are too many taxes to be gained to endanger this market. (I added in the second note: I guess what I'm saying is, why not continue to make money on idiots like me who kept smoking despite all the harful effects it could have and was having on my body)
I do agree that more tobacco prevention measures should be taken. But I can tell you, from experience (of being a teen smoker years ago) that getting rid of flavors, moving marketing to 1000 ft away of schools (which I have never seen it that close anyways), and changing ads to plain black on white...will NOT help. As a former teen smoker I can tell you that ads never lured me in, I never smoked flavored cigarettes until well into my legal smoking years, and I never saw advertising in/near schools. I smoked because I wanted to...nobody lured me in. My father smoked a specific camel type of cigarette every single morning on the way to school, I became addicted to the smell (being choked by his smoke, no kidding), it was delightful. When he quit, I literally went nuts. I started smoking soon after. Smoking starts with the parents/schools, morely the parents. Society has changed so much these days that parents don't spend enough time with their children. Parents don't tell their kids not to smoke nearly as much as they should. Parents don't even notice when their kids are doing drugs/huffing paint/smoking weed/smoking cigarettes. I speak from experience. My parents left for 2 weeks for germany and when they returned they heard somebody mention they thought they saw me smoking. They searched my room for a pack of cigarettes, and when they didn't find it, they never confronted me. What they didn't know is that, like any kid, I hid loose cigarettes in altoid containers. If they had confronted me, I may have stopped right then and there, I had only had 2 cigarettes by that time. But they didn't stop me, they didn't pay enough attention...and eventually I started smoking a pack or more a day.
I watched the discussions on this bill. In the meeting on Tuesday, one of the speakers stated that there had been remarkable declines in children smoking since more stop-smoking and prevent smoking measures were put into place. I think that you should encourage more media about the horrors of smoking, like is already being done, I see the commercials daily. I think that maybe healthy lungs and unhealthy lungs could be put on display (the real thing, not a picture, kids just think the pictures are faked) in the science section of schools. I know one thing that freaked me out was the jar of tar demonstrating the amount of tar that builds in the lungs. One could do a demonstration showing the cigarettes being smoked and the water the smoke is run through turns dark almost immediately. Things like this are going to stop/slow down teen smoking...this proposed bill will not.
Please vote NO to this bill. Please vote yes to better parenting and more smoking prevention groups."
I know that I'm not fluent with my words and I did not fight for the e-cig to them. I think right now we should focus more on stopping the bill...as it is of major pertinence right now. I didn't want to open a sore about e-cigs at this moment...I guess I didn't want them to think that was the one and only reason I didn't want the bill to pass...it could be written off as..."we don't know that would happen."
"Please vote "NO" for S.982 - FDA tobacco Bill.
I am not a smoker (I quit 3 months ago), but I can tell you that this bill is going about everything the wrong way. This bill could hurt tobacco farmers and endanger 65,000 jobs in states that already have an 11% unemployment rate. With the economy the way that it is right now, this is the last thing we need. Also, there are too many taxes to be gained to endanger this market. (I added in the second note: I guess what I'm saying is, why not continue to make money on idiots like me who kept smoking despite all the harful effects it could have and was having on my body)
I do agree that more tobacco prevention measures should be taken. But I can tell you, from experience (of being a teen smoker years ago) that getting rid of flavors, moving marketing to 1000 ft away of schools (which I have never seen it that close anyways), and changing ads to plain black on white...will NOT help. As a former teen smoker I can tell you that ads never lured me in, I never smoked flavored cigarettes until well into my legal smoking years, and I never saw advertising in/near schools. I smoked because I wanted to...nobody lured me in. My father smoked a specific camel type of cigarette every single morning on the way to school, I became addicted to the smell (being choked by his smoke, no kidding), it was delightful. When he quit, I literally went nuts. I started smoking soon after. Smoking starts with the parents/schools, morely the parents. Society has changed so much these days that parents don't spend enough time with their children. Parents don't tell their kids not to smoke nearly as much as they should. Parents don't even notice when their kids are doing drugs/huffing paint/smoking weed/smoking cigarettes. I speak from experience. My parents left for 2 weeks for germany and when they returned they heard somebody mention they thought they saw me smoking. They searched my room for a pack of cigarettes, and when they didn't find it, they never confronted me. What they didn't know is that, like any kid, I hid loose cigarettes in altoid containers. If they had confronted me, I may have stopped right then and there, I had only had 2 cigarettes by that time. But they didn't stop me, they didn't pay enough attention...and eventually I started smoking a pack or more a day.
I watched the discussions on this bill. In the meeting on Tuesday, one of the speakers stated that there had been remarkable declines in children smoking since more stop-smoking and prevent smoking measures were put into place. I think that you should encourage more media about the horrors of smoking, like is already being done, I see the commercials daily. I think that maybe healthy lungs and unhealthy lungs could be put on display (the real thing, not a picture, kids just think the pictures are faked) in the science section of schools. I know one thing that freaked me out was the jar of tar demonstrating the amount of tar that builds in the lungs. One could do a demonstration showing the cigarettes being smoked and the water the smoke is run through turns dark almost immediately. Things like this are going to stop/slow down teen smoking...this proposed bill will not.
Please vote NO to this bill. Please vote yes to better parenting and more smoking prevention groups."
I know that I'm not fluent with my words and I did not fight for the e-cig to them. I think right now we should focus more on stopping the bill...as it is of major pertinence right now. I didn't want to open a sore about e-cigs at this moment...I guess I didn't want them to think that was the one and only reason I didn't want the bill to pass...it could be written off as..."we don't know that would happen."
