To whom it may concern,

Have you ever smelt that nasty smell? I’m talking about the smell of smoke. Not in the way of bonfires or burning your popcorn or other food. I’m talking about tobacco smoke. The smoke that is addictingly deadly. Walking in public and passing by someone who’s smoking, I have an instinct to act as if they are poisoning me (because they technically are). So yes I start coughing very loudly and obnoxiously, I usually cover half of my face dramatically with a scarf or other article of clothing. The way I see it is smoking is a double negative. One it is bad for the people doing it, and two it is bad for the environment and people around them. True story, I was recently at Disney world and saw this big group of adults huddled in a corner behind a sign that read “smoking area”. Even though they are in the designated smoking area doesn’t mean the smoke is going to stay there. The worst part is that tobacco companies are targeting their advertising towards teens. They are trying to get them hooked at a young age so they will buy this product for the rest of their life. Their lives aren’t going to be very long lived due to their use of tobacco affecting their lungs.  The sad thing is that their target consumers (teens) are actually buying this stuff. Here’s another fun story, recently I was at Valleyscare waiting in line for a ride when I got a whiff of the most obnoxiously disgusting smell. It was smoke. This is supposed to be a family friendly atmosphere, yet now I can’t even see the atmosphere above me.  I looked around searching for the source of this terrible smell. I find it, there’s a teenage boy standing under the ride off to the side of the line smoking. He couldn’t wait to be out of line and away from the other families who were here. NO, he couldn’t wait to smoke. He thought he was doing the “right” thing by stepping out of line, but NEWS FLASH smoke travels. Smoking especially affects me because I have asthma. Nearly 9 out of 10 smokers started smoking by age 18, statistics show that the percent of MIDDLE school kids smoking is 6.7% and 23.3% of high school students are tobacco users. I don’t know how you can still work at a tobacco company knowing you are the cause of five million deaths per year, and more than 16 million Americans suffer from a disease caused by smoking.  Put an end to this please and ban those “smoking areas” get rid of the ads saying that they’ve made a new product that’s “less harmful for you”. Stop the killing.

Thanks, Madison B.