What I Want to Know

• Why do we really smoke or chew tobacco besides stress and addiction if we can quit?
• Has our lifestyles and natural habits passed down through generations changed to keep us from quitting?
• How do negative pressures tie in with overuse of tobacco?
• Should there be more laws or education about tobacco products to teenagers?
• When does overuse of tobacco become an addiction?

Story Behind My Topic

In 2008, eleven percent of the United States average deaths were from cancers caused by tobacco. Was one or more of your loved ones part of that eleven percent? My uncle was. At the time of his death, I was only twelve, but I looked up to him as a role model and the father figure I had always wished for. When he died, I went through a traumatic emotional event, which led to depression and an antisocial independence. On top of that, my mother and my father smoked all the time, so I was in a state of worry constantly and still am today. I grew up despising the act of touching anything to do with tobacco, and was constantly told not to get into anything with tobacco, which I thought at the time was hypocritical considering they were smoking right in front of me every day. The worry, depression, and antisocial lifestyle that I created for myself, started to affect me in school, and health. I was emotionally, physically, and mentally drained all the time, my grades would drop, and I started hanging around the wrong group of teens. Everything that I had ever known went downhill; I felt hopeless and alone. I realized that it is not just my parents' or my uncle's fault that they were addicted to tobacco; it is also the fact that there is a mass production and usage of the tobacco products in the United States. Almost every store sells or advertises cigarettes and other tobacco products. On top of that, there is negative pressures everywhere; in ads, other people, media, news, almost every and anything. Tobacco has changed many teenagers' lives, including mine.