HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0942.159 2006-2008
Tobacco Education & Assistance Program
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www.kickthenic.net
Providing Free "Quit Smoking" Groups and Intervention Training to Health Care Providers on Hawaii Island
A program of Community Links Hawaii
April 22, 2008
Aloha,
My name is Cara Sadira, and I am a Certified Tobacco Treatment Specialist. I run the Tobacco
Education & Assistance Program. I am writing to again express my full support of regulating smoking
on beaches. I am in support of this proposed legislation out of concern for the smokers that I help to
quit smoking. p t e u 5C v t" rY cCtc l6+ IEl QVC1 ~_s k?,
Current medical research has proven that smoking is NOT a habit, it is an addictive drug, absorbed by
the brain that makes the brain completely dependent. The brain changes that occur from nicotine
addiction do not go away. The brain remains permanently altered. For this reason, it is incredibly
difficult for smokers to quit smoking, for good. To allow this addictive drug to freely circulate through
the air in public parks and beaches seriously affects the lives of people who have gone through the
incredibly difficult process of quitting smoking. While at the park or beach, they are involuntarily
exposed to the very addictive drug that they have worked so hard to purge from their system. Once this
drug again enters the system, the brain again conducts processes in the manner of addiction (as the
brain has already been altered from the original smoking addiction). In short, we are exposing our
constituents to a dangerous, addictive drug that kills, often triggering relapse, just because they
decided to go to the beach.
It is absolutely a consideration that ex-smokers in contact with tobacco smoke may be triggered to
again take up smoking, and again become addicted to this dangerous drug that claims 460,000 lives
annually in the U.S. For smokers, the main concern that they articulate to me is that they will be
gasping for air, unable to breathe, with lungs collapsing from abuse, dependent upon an oxygen tank,
and unfortunately, cigarettes for proper brain and bodily function at the end of their lives. They are
also concerned with the hold that the addiction has over them. They mint have cigarettes in hand.
They must spend their hand-camed money, and they must engage in a process that they know is
dangerous for their health, just to have normal brain function. It is not right to expose them to this
substance in the air they breathe on our beaches after they have worked so hard to stay off of it.
Thenk you,
Cara Sadira
Contact: Cara Sadim Certified Tobacco Treatment Specialist * Phone: (808) 5574838 ' Fax: 1-866-825-7496
E-mail cara&kicklhenie.net* Address: P.O. Box 2087, Keaau, HI96749COMM. No. 442AL
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