1. I Can’t Breath.
A Smoker’s Story

2. Smoking Facts
Nicotine from a cigarettes enter your lungs and travels directly to the brain in 7 seconds
Smoking is the single most preventable cause of illness and disease in the United States today.
Every day in the United States, more than 1,100 people die from smoking-related illnesses.
More people die each year in the United States from smoking-related diseases than from alcohol, crack, heroin, murder, suicide, car accidents and AIDS combined

3. Smoking Facts
Cigarette smoking is one of the greatest public health threats facing young people in this country today.
Up to 90% of people who smoke had their first cigarette before the age of 20.
Each day, more than 5,000 kids try their first cigarette. That’s more than two million kids a year.
Roughly one third of teen smokers will eventually die from a tobacco-related disease.
According to the U.S. Surgeon General, tobacco is often the first drug used by those young people who use alcohol, marijuana, and other drugs.

4. Discussion Questions Why do you think smoking makes you sick?
Has anyone ever seen a baby smoke?
Why would someone continue to smoke even if it made him or her feel sick?
What is in a cigarette that causes someone to become addicted?
What is the difference between habit and addiction?
Your body’s natural reaction is to reject poison. Smoke contains thousands of toxic chemicals.
No, because it’s not natural – you have to learn how to smoke.
They may think it will help them to fit in or help them to lose weight – a common misconception. Peer pressure could be another factor or they may already be addicted.
Nicotine. It is a stimulant and the addictive agent that naturally exists in tobacco. Studies suggest that it is as addictive as heroin.
Habit is your usual way of doing something. Addiction is the physical/emotional need for something.

5. Discussion Questions
Why didn’t Pam quit smoking cigarettes when it started to affect her health?
How does smoking a cigarette hurt the body?
When you see or hear Pam cough, how does it make you feel?
She was addicted and didn’t think that quitting would help.
The poisons in tobacco smoke damage almost every organ in the body – heart, lungs, even the skin.

6. Discussion Questions
What was it like for you to hear Pam recall the night she went to the hospital?
What are the symptoms of emphysema?
Writing notes to her friends and children and hearing the doctor yell orders in the emergency room?
Extreme shortness of breath, painful cough.