DARE officer warns students
Tobacco addiction affects every organ of body
WANDA BRISTER

Every month the Jasper Police Department will be working to keep parents aware of the most current information on safety tips and drug awareness. This month we focus on tobacco.

THE LAW: Sale of cigarettes or tobacco products to persons younger than 18 years of age is prohibited. Proof of age of age is required.

PENALTY: Minors can be fined up to $250 and required to attend a tobacco awareness class for two Saturdays in a row with their parents. If they do not comply, a minor's driver's license can be suspended or denied.

SELLING TO A MINOR: Sales clerks can be fined up to $500, jeopardizing the permit to sell tobacco products. Stores can be fined $500 for the first offense, $750 for the second, and $1,000 or suspension of permit for three days and six months after that.

FACTS: 6 Tobacco and alcohol are known gateway drugs for our youth, simply because it is opening the door to addiction for our kids. Once their little bodies get a taste of addiction, so many times it takes control. For example, as an adult with cigarettes, how many times have you k n o w n s o m e o n e that was only going to smoke one cigarette a day, and in no time they were up to a pack a day. How many adults today will tell you they wish they had never started? 6 Even though we as adults have made mistakes with tobacco, we have to be willing to communicate with our kids on the results and most important facts. 6 Every organ in your body is affected by tobacco, simply because of all the chemicals in cigarettes. Examples of cancers caused by smokeless tobacco and cigarettes are: mouth, throat, lung and kidney cancers. Many other cancers are caused by the extra work that is put on your heart trying to keep your body going while you are destroying it. 6 Second hand smoke— what are we doing to our kids? It’s a proven fact that more of our young people are developing asthma and and more ear infections because of others smoking around them. Fact: about 3,000 nonsmokers die of lung cancer each year from breathing in other people’s smoke. 6 Smoking dries out your skin and will cause you to age faster with skin wrinkling and more. Because teens are in the

developing stage of their life, tobacco and other drugs hinder development.

Let’s remember that our kids are our future and we have to work hard to protect them.

Jasper Police Officer Wanda Brister teaches drug awareness throughout Jasper County.