A Halloween Antismoking Message

ash.org

Folklore says that vampires, the most frightening of all Halloween monsters, gradually enslave people by biting their necks, and eventually cause them to suffer a lingering death.

While parents assure their young children that vampires are only imaginary, they should also use the occasion to tell kids about real monsters who really do enslave them, and do cause long and lingering deaths. These monsters are, of course, tobacco company executives, who begin enslaving children as young as 7 or 8 to nicotine, a drug now known to be as addictive as cocaine or heroin for many people.

While even Count Dracula, the most fearsome of all vampires, could enslave only a few dozen people at a time, tobacco companies enslave more than 3000 new kids every single day. Of these, at least 1000 will die as a result of their addiction to nicotine, and many more will endure long suffering while connected to artificial respirators, life support machines, and other devices.

Books and movies rarely depicted vampires targeting children, presumably because it would be too gruesome or too monstrous to show. But previously-secret documents showing cigarette manufacturers planning to capitalize on handicapped third-graders, or to develop root-beer-flavor or other cigarettes specially geared to the youth market, leave no doubt that the real-life monsters at tobacco companies have no such compunctions.

Several studies now show that secondhand tobacco smoke kills almost 200 young children each year, mostly from respiratory infections. It also forces almost four million kids to seek medical care from a hospital or doctor's office annually, and to develop asthma and other diseases.

So, kids have more to fear this Halloween from tobacco companies, and from their own parents who expose them to smoke, than from monsters or the few mentally ill people who try to prey on kids trick-or-treating.

Parents and teachers should use Halloween to warn kids about real monsters, and dangers which can really kill them, says Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), a national antismoking organization.