Five years from now, I’ll be nineteen years old. Five years from now, Pitman’s current seniors will have completed their four years at college already. Five years from now, the nicotine from a smoker’s brain will begin to fade away if he/she quits today. One cigarette allows nicotine to get to your brain even if it won’t change your brain altogether. So why start in the first place? Nicotine is addictive and after that one cigar, your body most likely will crave more. So why start in the first place?
Tobacco, drugs, and cigarettes can ruin your life and your brain. Dr. Victor DeNoble paid a visit to Pitman High School and informed students about the effects of nicotine along with other tobacco products on your brain by using his personal story of how he proved this theory with his partner, Paul. Students that attended the assembly received the courtesy to see a frozen human, monkey and rat brain. All three brains were affected by drugs in their lifetimes; yes, even the monkey and the rat were drug addicts.
Nicotine goes through your blood, your heart, and your brain, increasing the overall amount of dopamine within your body; consequently, this increases your happiness, even for a short while. Eventually, as you supply your brain with more dopamine by smoking continuously, your brain feels the need for a cigarette due to the intensified feeling of happiness. This whole process alters the manner in which your brain functions, according to Dr. DeNoble.
This doctor explained his journey of discovering the transformation of your brain’s behavior from the consequences of drug usage starting from being hired by Phillip Morris Co. to find a substitute for nicotine in tobacco products. He also decided to venture into how/why nicotine is so ghastly, but after he informed Phillip Morris, they objected to his experiments. Despite this warning, however, he carried on until he was fired from the company. After losing some evidence which he—with great difficulty, had finally managed to save—he thought that now there was no way to present his idea to stop tobacco companies.
Some years later, though, the FBI communicated with Dr. Victor and after working together and gathering a source of evidence, the doctor settled to testify against tobacco companies. His statements encouraged the growing public sentiment against smoking. Today, there are non-smoking cars in a country where smoking was everywhere and mainly, the credit goes to the guts of Dr. DeNoble.
Currently, there is a contest going on in which students can participate and will continue until March 25th. In this contest, you can enter your own anti-smoking message. The winner’s message will then be displayed across billboards and will also receive a prize! To find out more information, go to www.kp.org/centralvalley.
