The Young Person's Cyber-Library of Information on Tobacco and Tobacco-Caused Disease
I am a physician and thoracic (chest) surgeon with almost 30 years of experience
treating patients with tobacco related diseases including lung cancer, bronchitis and
emphysema, coronary artery disease (heart attack), carotid vascular disease (stroke or
CVA) and many other diseases. This page is an outgrowth of my experience with The Lung Cancer and Cigarette Smoking Web Page in an attempt to
provide useful information on this problem for the purpose of improving an ongoing public
health catastrophe..
Through the E-mail and form feedback features of that page, have come
hundreds of inquiries from young people for information on tobacco and tobacco-caused
diseases. 27% of requests for help or information have come from people age 21 and under.
Most questions relate to help in gathering information for the preparation of school
reports, requests for information on smoking cessation or concerns about their own health
or the health of family and friends. An abstract of my
experience with the Lung Cancer and Cigarette Smoking Web Page presented to the World
Congress on Lung Cancer in Dublin Ireland is offered here.
Attempts to direct these young people to sources of information available on the
Internet and World Wide Web, that would help answer their questions and needs, have been
frustrating. Searches of the WWW for information on tobacco yield a wealth of great
information from hundreds of different web sites. There is, however, an appreciable dearth
of information available on the WWW, and in general, on tobacco and tobacco-caused
disease, that is age-specific and appropriate for young people.
This Cyber-Library is very much a work in progress.
It will provide links to web sites I have
found containing text, graphic, audio, video and computer program files relating to
tobacco and tobacco-caused health problems that I think are suitable for young people. One
great difficulty will be in deciding whether a specific item is useful or appropriate for
children of a certain age. As a practicing thoracic surgeon, I have very little practical
experience in dealing with young people (other than my own four children). In this regard
I will need lots of help and input from teachers, pediatricians, nurses, counselors,
authors, publishers of childrens books --and especially from young people as to
whether a specific item is too hard to read or is hopelessly uncool!
:You can send me E-mail
or comment on the page through the guestbook feature below.
With your help and support this Cyber-Library will grow quickly into a useful resource
for children, adolescents and young adults
Safety
While every effort has been made to ensure that the material viewable here and in
pages linked to this Cyber-library is suitable for children and adolescents, it is
important that young browsers follow some very important cyber-safety rules! Kehoe and
Mixon suggest the following in their excellent book Children and the Internet.
Don't give out personal information, your name, address, phone number without your
parent's or teacher's permission!
Tell a parent or teacher about new Internet friends!
Don't arrange face-to-face meetings alone with people you meet on the Internet!
Don't believe everything you read on the Internet!
Don't give out your password!
If something or someone makes you feel bad, tell someone about it!
Links
Entertaining Educational Programsof
Massachussets provides age specific educational entertainment programs on
"Choice" and other important issues.
The Tale of Samantha the Magenta SkunkA
non-smoking campaign produced by professor William Scott, designed for young Elementary
school children.
THE CAMEL WHO LIKED TO SMOKEIs a story with a
message for older children from Peter Michaelson.
Another smoking Camel, Joe Camel's lesser known brother Joe Chemo can be visited in his
hospital bed and in the hallway (Joe2.html) at Adbusters Magazine.
If you would like to understand the current (May 1998) maneuvering going on in
Congress over tobacco and public health, visit this page Mr. Camel Goes to
Washington.
The tobacco industry is always trying to show famous people smoking to indicate that
smoking is glamorous. The truth is more evident at Some of Our Losses where a list of
famous people who have been killed by tobacco can be found.
To read a series of essays on the topic or tobacco, written by sixth graders at the
Frances DeMasi Middle School, Marlton, NJ, visit Oncolink at
the University of Pennsylvania.
Magazine is a FREE publication offered to students on all U.S. high school campuses. Stop
in and take the Grip Magazine survey on Tobacco. They will send your views to your elected
representatives in Congress.
Here is some more counter-advertising, but with a difference. These ads were done by
young people. Visit this great site courtesy of Smokescreen
Kids and Smoking Issues NicNet: The Arizona
Nicotine and Tobacco Network has published this great web site with numerous images and
files for young people. http://tobacco.arizona.edu/
Eric has posted this irreverent and slightly gross quiz for teenagers to help them
decide whether they are addicted to cigarettes at Grip Magazine and Voicenet.com
That's pretty gross, but not as gross as this RECIPE FOR A CIGARETTE from
Chrisco.
Smoke Free Seminars has posted this parable of Three Wise Guys that may help
teens understand emphysema better.
The Master Anti-Smoking Page: Help for
Student Research About Smoking has an interesting resource where students can E-mail
requests for help with requests for information on specific questions regarding tobacco.
There is a wealth of information on how to stop smoking at The Great American Smokeout Web Page.
Referencescontains some citations of classic journal
articles dealing with tobacco and it's causation of human diseases. Much of this material
is difficult reading and requires knowledge of chemistry, biology, epidemiology and other
advanced information.
President Clinton has designated the LeskoBrothers"The vending machine
killers. Find out why at their great web site!
http://www.cquest.com/lesko8n3.gif
Another great web site created by teenager Brian
Peters is a wonderful source of accurate information on another deadly form of
tobacco, spit tobacco.
http://141.211.226.92/health/service/teenhealth/smokeless/htmls/smokeless.html
High School student John Wesley
Hicks III has posted this comprehensive, beautifully crafted web page on cigarette
smoking and teens. http://141.211.226.92/health/service/teenhealth/teensmoking/index.html
Here is another informative web site Cigarettes Delenda Est that
provides multiple cartoon images with animation and music to counter cigarette advertising
aimed at young people. http://www.ganesha.org/ptb/tobacco.html#carolina
Save Lives Not Tobacco:The Coalition
for Accountability has a number of brief information rich Fact Sheets on various aspects
of tobacco caused illness at its Web Site. They cover the following topics:
Addiction
http://www.savelives.org/sl/fact/ADDICT.CFM
Environmental Tobacco Smoke
http://www.savelives.org/sl/fact/environ.cfm
Fire-Safe Cigarettes http://www.savelives.org/sl/fact/firesafe.cfm
Immunity
http://www.savelives.org/sl/fact/immunity.cfm
Resources http://www.savelives.org/sl/fact/resources.cfm
Youth and Tobacco http://www.savelives.org/sl/fact/youth.cfm
Industry http://www.savelives.org/sl/fact/industry.cfm
Industry Misconduct, An
Overview http://www.savelives.org/sl/fact/miscond.cfm
Industry Misconduct http://www.savelives.org/sl/fact/misconall.cfm
When Used as Intended
http://www.savelives.org/sl/fact/intended.cfm
A lot of youngsters are looking for statistical information on cancers. How many
cases, changes over time etc.? The best source for this type of information is the annual
January issue of CA A Cancer Journal for
Clinicians, published by the American Cancer Society and Lippincott Raven and available on
the web at http://www.ca-journal.org
This site contains an important April
Fools message from the American Lung Association and Public Citizen.
Youth Media Network has many interesting features
on tobacco questions and issues.
When I was a young person, young people "got involved" and in the process,
helped to establish racial equality, stop a war and impeach the president of the United
States! Tobacco is a great issue to "get involved" in. The Surgeon General has
put together a web page called SGR 4 Kids that is well
worth a visit from grammar and high school students who would like to "get
involved". 
Although I strongly disagree with the National Center for Tobacco-Free Kids, given
their poor track record with respect to urging Congress to provide freedom from liability
to the tobacco industry, they do have a web page where they honor young people who have
"gotten involved" at Youth Award
They also have an outstanding web page on the ABCs of Smoking with lots of
pictures of diseases caused by tobacco.
Another great way to "get involved" is to join the Teens as Teachers
a project of Americans for Non-smokers Rights.
Teens Against Tobacco Use (T.A.T.U.) is a similar project. Find out more about T.A.T.U.
in conversation with Michelle Camozzi at this
excellent site
http://www.talkcity.com:2000/theinsite/solutions/solutions_tobacco_text.html
I got some of the great sites linked here, as well as many other interesting items
from the fantastic Larry Breed's
Tobacco Activism Guide Although this site is not specifically designed for young
people, it has a special section where Larry keeps a list of good sites that are.
What does Clungs
mean? Drop in and find out.http://www.tx.cancer.org/scream/clungs/clungs.html
The Industrial Health
Links Site has an interesting slant in that it looks at tobacco smoke as one of many
atmospheric polutants including radioactivity, lead, dioxin and other toxic wastes.
http://www.aloha.net/~mpc/industrial_health.html
The state of Florida brings you this innovative Wholetruth
web site. Visit there and consider joining the SWAT team. 
This program has been so amazingly successful in educating the young people of
Florida and in reducing the numbers of young people who start to smoke that tobacco
friendly politicians are trying to kill the program. Please write to Governor Bush and
tell him not to kill this great program. You can read the whole sordid story at the LA
Times web site.
http://www.latimes.com/HOME/NEWS/NATION/t000025084.html THE L.A. TIMES Saturday,
March 20, 1999 Lawmakers Try to Gut Apparently Successful Anti-Smoking Campaign Survey:
Rates of Florida teens using tobacco fell more than 2% in last year. But a top health
official was fired, and House seeks to kill advertising program. By MIKE CLARY, Times
Staff Writer
kickbutt.org has lots of great features including this Picture of the Day gallery of drawings by
young people.
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) has an excellent site for tobacco information
for older readers. at http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/
If you live in the state of California and need help kicking tobacco addiction, try
this site for assistance. http://www.ymn.org/helpline.htmlNo Buttsat Youth Media Network or call
1-800-7NOBUTTS.
High Country ASSIST
has a nice web page with graphs, lists and other useful information for grammar and
high-school readersat http://www.lostprovince.com/hcassist/youth.html
Quit Smoking Today</A>and
the associated Stop Smoking Ring,
which are both produced by Kevin Klements are wonderful resources for a person trying to
quit this nasty addiction. 
Although this site doesn't have information on tobacco at this point, it has great
information on almost everything else J. B.
Pinchbeck's Homework Helper Web Page and it's written by an 11 year old!
If you really want to know what emphysema is all about, visit this powerful web site
and let the members of EFFORTS tell you from a personal perspective what it is like to
have emphysema. CIGARETTE ANYONE? This
is a very interesting concept site, Emphysema Foundation For Our Right To Survive where a
group of people suffering from the disease emphysema, caused by cigarette smoking, try to
explain to young people, what it is like to have emphysema.
Teenagers, how does it feel to be a target? This web page at Frontline
proves that the tobacco industry is stalking you by quoting from internal tobacco company
memos. There is also a lot more information about tobacco on the Frontline web site.
The Florida Kids Campaign Against Tobacco is a
new site full of information and enjoyment for younger kids.
Would you like to paint Screamin'
Ike? Just pass this short quiz from the American Cancer Society.
Play "The Underground"
here by answering five questions from the American Cancer Society.
If you are interested in the anatomy of the organs of the chest that are effected by
tobacco, visit this truly awesome, high-tech site. A cyber-atlas
of the chest and its structures can be found at the <A
href="http://www9.biostr.washington.edu/cgi-bin/DA/PageMaster?atlas:Thorax+ffpathIndex:Thorax^Splash+2">
Interactive Atlas of Thoracic Viscera </A> by D.M. Conley and C. Rosse at the
University of Washington.
4H has always been a good friend to young people, but now they are making a very bad
decision to cooperate with the enemy. Find out what is going on at
Onyxhttp://www.onyx-group.com/Factsheet3.htm
Would you be interested in playing cards
with death? You can do so at http://www.deathcards.com/cig.html
The Center for Disease Control has a web site that will aid your search for
information on tobacco and tobacco-caused diseases at
http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/osh/search/index.htm.
Katlyn is a ten year old who has a great web page devoted to telling other young
people about her life with her mother, who has severe emphysema caused by cigarettes. Katlyn's Butthead
Page.
I get lots of E-mail from young people who want a list of all of the bad things in cigarette smoke. You can find just such a list at this web site, but it is a little complicated. You may have to download and install a plug-in program to let you read the files. The amazing thing is that this list of poisons was compiled by a tobacco company. You can be sure they didn't advertise this information. The truth was dragged out of them during a court trial. Go to the Brown and Williamson site
Brown and Williamson Tobacco and use the search screen provided to find the document entitled "Analysis of Toxic Smoke Constituents" (Bates No. 505106893/6932). Dated September 8, 1992, it is an analysis by the American Health Foundation (a research foundation that appears to have been frequently retained by the tobacco industry). It clearly outlines the most toxic chemicals in both mainstream and sidestream tobacco smoke. This document was discovered by Anne Landman a tobacco control expert in Colorado.
Many people ask why they still got lung cancer even when they stopped smoking many years before. Here is some new information to help answer this question. It is pretty frightening! From the San Francisco Chronicle.