We were given a quiz on what we should know about smoking already, for example the contents of a cigarette, the illnesses that it can cause and the amount it would cost per month or year. During the test I learned that it would cost you, on average, €3,060 a year if you smoked twenty cigarettes a day.
After the quiz, a jar of tar was passed around. This jar contained the amount of tar that would build up in your lungs if you smoked twenty cigarettes a day for one whole year. It was disgusting to see the tar and there was a horrible smell off it as well. We were also told that every cigarette takes, on average, 11 minutes off your life and a lot of smokers die in their thirties.
Then we watched four short videos about smokers and the effects smoking has or had on them. The first video was about a man who had to have an operation to remove a tumour from his throat. The video showed the operation and it even showed how they removed the tumour through the man’s neck. It was very graphic but it proved what effects smoking can have on you. The man now breathes through a hole in his neck.
The second video showed a mother and daughter who smoked and were trying to quit. The video showed their progress over three days and by the third day they both couldn’t take not smoking and had another cigarette. They decided to try to quit again. This video was very good for showing the addictiveness of smoking and the nicotine in a cigarette.
The third video showed an advertisement for cigarette companies. This ad was an old ad and it showed some doctors claiming that nicotine was not addictive and that smoking made people look cool. This advertisement felt like a joke when compared to the advertisements that say every second smoker will die soon because of smoking related diseases.
The fourth video was about passive or second-hand smoking. The video was about a school boy who had a pet dog. The boy smoked and the dog was always around him. The dog eventually inhaled so much smoke that it died. The sad thing is that this doesn’t only happen to pets it can happen to people as well.
This talk was very interesting because it was good to hear about the terrible effects of smoking and the damage that it can cause, not only to your health but also your finances. I think that the classes benefitted greatly from the talk and will be more aware in the future about smoking.