I am tobacco-free because I don't want to deliberately poison by body. I don't want my family to have to watch me gasping for air, purple because the dog stepped on the cord to my oxygen tank and have to hear me hacking uncontrollably every night. I had to see these things as my grandpa slowly suffered and died from emphysema, which was directly caused by his tobacco use. By staying tobacco-free, I am saving my family from watching another death caused by tobacco and I am saving myself from the guilt of making them watch.
- Laura

I am trying to help the one person I care about the most quit smoking. I think that I am the only positive role model in his life, and I am helping him succeed and change his life for the better. I am helping him stop smoking for his health benefit and because I do not want to see him hurt. I hope all of you out there has a positive role model in your life to help you overcome your goals and achieve to the highest standards you are capable of.
- Amanda

Hello to all of you out there. I don't know if all of you go through what I might go through but I know that most of you have. My mother is a smoker and it affects me in every way it effects her but, what I go through is a little bit more hurtful to me than it is her. Her smoking USED to effect me in school just because I smelled like tobacco smoke. All of the other students would make fun of me. I would come home most days depressed but now I do certain things so the smoke doesn't effect me in school. I always keep disinfectant on hand and just spray my room three times a day. The smell is no longer in my room or clothes. So now I go to school not smelling like tobacco smoke. I am proud to say that I stay in my room all day long and smell "So Fresh and So Clean!" So if you just happened to go through what I went through use this method and you don't even half to tell your parents why you are doing this.
- Andrew Dill, ROJA

Since my brother has been smoking just about all his choices has been wrong. He doesn't think about what he is doing. He will smoke around his child, now the baby has ashma.
- Rita, Project Exhale

At age 41, with two small children, I was diagnosed with oral cancer. I had quit smoking three years prior, but it take ten years for the effects to leave one’s body. I had smoked for 26 years–no great surprise as I grew up in Kentucky, a tobacco growing state. After the removal of a section of my tongue and months of recovery, I was cured.

Luck was with me, but you shouldn’t count on luck; count on good choices.
- Julie Good, Kick Ash Club, Students Oppose Smoking (SOS)