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Stephanie Kosonen

Skagit HEAT shows ugly side of smoking

A few more Quit Kits are in the hands of people who want to stop using tobacco, and a few more souls have been officially “grossed out” by the harmful effects of smoking. Members of Skagit HEAT (Helping Educate About Tobacco), an organization dedicated to spreading anti-tobacco awareness, also gave out stickers with phrases like “kissing a smoker is like licking an ashtray,” as well as pamphlets and posters Saturday at the Cascade Mall in Burlington.

The youths showed shoppers just a handful of the approximately 4,000 chemicals contained in the average cigarette, and demonstrated the reduced capacity and blackened color of a set of pig lungs which had been exposed to about 20 years’ worth of cigarette smoke.

A pink, healthy set of lungs was displayed next to the blotchy, tar-colored set at the Skagit HEAT table. Group member Morgan Curry said the pig lungs are an effective visual tool to show people what smoking does inside the body.

“Most people are grossed out by them,” she said.

The healthy ones not only looked better, they worked better, too. Both sets of lungs were hooked up to a foot pump that inflated them simultaneously, the non-smoking lungs inflating larger and longer than the ones that had mechanically smoked thousands of cigarettes.

Skagit HEAT health educator Allison Beima said the information convinced a few people to take home the Quit Kits, which contain informational brochures and a telephone number to call for extra support. The kits also contain gum, meant to curb cravings, and rubber bands for a tobacco user to wear on the wrist, snapping themselves with it when the urge arises to smoke or chew tobacco.

The group has put on the mall event every year in January since 2000, when it formed. Curry said she wanted to help people quit smoking because the danger goes beyond the smoker.

“It affects everyone around them,” Curry said. “Second hand smoke kills more people than you think.”