Smoking is not an option,
but an addiction 

The campaigns against smoking have been intensified worldwide, the harm caused by tabagism should always be remembered, if we want a better future for our children.

Accounted for 30% of all cases of cancer and for another 25 different diseases, tobacco has never faced such a big campaign, in which doctors, psychologists and other health professionals are allied to the government in order to combat smoking addiction.

Only recently - just over ten years – smoking has been considered as an epidemic by the World Health Organization (WHO), who estimates that there are more than 1 billion smokers worldwide, and in Brazil, according to the Ministry of Health, this number is close to 20% of the population.

There are some experts, radicals in the fight against smoking, such as the doctor Vera Luiza da Costa e Silva, who works for the National Cancer Institute and is a consultant for WHO, who think that smokers should be treated as drug addict (nicotine) in the same way that people addicted to alcohol, cocaine or morphine are treated.

In an interview conceded by the doctor, she has praised the companies that have restricted areas for smokers, but proposed more stringent measures to curb smoking, because smoking is not a lifestyle choice, but an addiction. According to her, it is essential to create smoke-free environments because it is known that passive smoking also causes diseases, but it is also essential to show more clearly the dangers to which people expose themselves when smoking cigarettes.

In Curitiba, the Liga Paranaense de Combate ao Câncer  (The League Against Cancer of Parana) has organised a walk with hundreds of participants  in order to draw the population’s attention to a serious public health issue. Aiming to attract the attention of youngsters, who are more accessible than adults to such campaigns, the institution hopes that the government increases the efforts to show clearly that smoking can actually kill. 

We, the spiritists, know through information provided by Andre Luiz, author of the renowned series "The Astral City”, that only few individuals reincarnated on Earth manage to live as much as it has been planned for their corporeal existence. Those who manage to achieve this feat are called “completists”, the name says it all.

However, if the consumption of tobacco shortens life,  what doctors have been warning for so long, those who depart from Earth early because of tobacco, they enter the spiritual world in the condition of suicidals, even if unconsciously or involuntarily.

In such cases, there are two hypotheses of what can happen with these people: they can be simply considered as non-completists or be treated as involuntary suicidals. There will be then - no doubt - the weeping and gnashing of teeth. This is not what Jesus used to say?