To the Editor:
I was thankful and encouraged to see in the Elizabethton Star newspaper the Carter County Drug Prevention Youth Board protest against tobacco sales at Walgreens. They want to save lives. They are correct when they said, “Tobacco does not belong in pharmacies.” Walgreens should at the least stop selling tobacco produces to those under 21 as Walmart has volunteered to do. Another thing the youth and others against tobacco could do is contact their state elected officials and ask them to raise the Tennessee legal smoking age from 18 to 21 to save lives. The smoking age is the minimum legal age required to purchase or smoke tobacco products. A growing number of states raised the smoking age to 21. Tennessee should do what 14 other states have done and raise the tobacco sale age from 18 to 21.
According to www.cancer.org about half of all Americans who keep smoking will die because of the habit. Each year more than 480,000 people in America die from illnesses related to tobacco use. This means each year smoking causes about 20 percent of all deaths in America. The media attacks gun use. However, smoking cigarettes kills more Americans than guns, alcohol, car accidents, HIV and all illegal drugs combined. Smoking shortens male smokers’ lives by about 12 years and female smokers’ lives by about 11 years. Smoking causes much more than cancer. Smoking damages nearly every organ in the body, including the lungs, heart, blood vessels, reproductive organs, mouth, skin, eyes and bones. Smoking accounts for about 30 percent of all cancer deaths in America, including about 80 percent of all lung cancer deaths. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death and is one of the hardest cancers to treat.
Smoking destroyed my mother’s health and continues to destroy the health of millions. If you smoke, pray and seek Jesus and Jesus will help you break this addiction and sin over your body. “People smoke for the nicotine, but they die from the tar.” It would be better and wiser to get their nicotine from gum. This is the future heath for all who love Jesus and have Jesus as Savior and Lord according to Revelation 21. “And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away!”

D.D. Nave
Elizabethton