I still remember the raspy voice of the wizened cancer patient with the hole in her throat. So addicted to the poison that was killing her — cigarettes — she interspersed her words of warning about the dangers of smoking with taking puffs of a cigarette through her tracheostomy hole.
It was a short, disturbing public service video shown in my sixth grade classroom as part of an anti-smoking campaign linked to a recently released U.S. surgeon general’s report, which for the first time officially linked smoking to cancer and heart disease.
That night, I flushed my father’s cigarettes down the toilet. The woman’s image haunted my nightmares for years. After seeing that video, I never lighted up.
