Maybe These Will Work

The FDA is proposing new warning labels for cigarettes.

After losing my mom and dad to lung cancer because they smoked, I'm all for this.

I always tell my students when we get to analyzing advertisements and writing our persuasive essays my stance on smoking: you are one dumb mother*&^%$# if you smoke.

I don't care if you or your folks smoke. I know how they will die. I know what you are going to go through watching them smother to death from the cancer in their lungs. Worse, if you smoke, I will know how you will die and how your kids will grieve over you.

Then I add that it is my wife's fear that I will get lung cancer from the 15 years or so that I was exposed to second hand smoke from Mom and Dad. I don't want Casey, KoKo, Kenzie and Cash huddled around me as I have morphine coursing through my veins - giving my lungs the illusion that they can draw in air - while I suffocate to death.

So maybe these warnings will scare off some and save their loved ones a lifetime of grief.

Or maybe we'll go old school and just outlaw the damned things and all those people who smoke will have to go cold turkey!

I'm all for that too.