Why talk about lemonade stands & tobacco?



Let’s be fair, OK?

Parents should share this message with children because it’s only fair they do that. Children must be warned about a different kind of stranger danger.

Everyone deserves a chance. That’s only fair.

Everyone deserves the opportunity to benefit from their own good achievements, like Sara’s social distancing lemonade stand.

“Self-Serve: Pay – Pour – Enjoy your healthy lemonade”, is what Sara’s sidewalk lemonade sign says. It’s a healthy drink keeping joggers hydrated and those folks are happy to pay a coin, do their hand hygiene, and enjoy the delicious drink they pour themselves at Sara’s lemonade stand. Everybody wins. That’s fair. And very nice and refreshing.


by Sharon Santiago, Melissa Hemingway, Rosa Yamamoto, Behar Abbasi


Stay alive to see the children growing up. Make 31 May 2020 the day you never light up again. The RINJ Foundation women’s group and The Nurses Without Borders are asking the entire world to “Expose Tobacco”. Don’t smoke again and stay alive longer to watch the children growing up.
Make 31 May 2020 the day you never light up again. Photo Art/Cropping/Enhancement: Rosa Yamamoto / Feminine-Perspective Magazine

Young Sara is entitled to the opportunity to set up her self-serve social distancing lemonade stand in front of her family’s front lawn.

While wearing a protective mask and protective plastic-bag-gloves for each customer she cleans up after when the customer goes on their way, Sara can benefit from her clever achievement of creating her safe lemonade stand with a huge shimmering jug of tangy cold lemonade beside a big jar having a giant label saying, “Pay-Pour-Enjoy“.

Sara sits back safely a few metres and smiles her welcome to joggers and strollers and watches cheerfully the coins plunk into her coin jar. Everybody is happy and healthy. It’s fair.

But we must draw the line when the opportunity to earn money kills millions of people per year. That’s not fair. Only really bad people who do not play fair do that type of thing.

Tobacco Exposed. Stop using tobacco because tobacco is exposed as danger.

Read: Tobacco use is unlike other threats to global health -PDF


“Don’t smoke again and stay alive longer to watch the children growing up,” says nurse practitioner Michele Francis. “Make 31 May 2020 the day you never light up again.” she added.

Is there a special reason why you say that, Nurse Michele?

“Yes. Because every day I meet nice people who love their families and can’t see their families because they are in the hospital at a bad time.  They were tricked into using tobacco by very bad people who started putting bad ideas in their head way back in time when they were children. Now they are deathly sick because they used tobacco, and that’s not fair. I see their children outside the front door, scared, worried, crying,  they might lose their Dad or Mom. I get so angry at tobacco because that’s not fair.”

Thank you Nurse Michele for the brave work you do helping persons who have become ill. We hope they will all get well again.

The RINJ Foundation women’s group and The Nurses Without Borders are asking the entire world to “Expose Tobacco”. These family-minded women have asked Feminine-Perspective Magazine to pass along their message. That’s why FPM.news asked ‘Cat’ to help.


FPM.news asked the youngest and smallest nurse among The Nurses Without Borders what she thought about people who try to get children to smoke. Yes. Exposed. Tobacco companies try to get children to smoke. We asked ‘Cat’. She was angry about this.

Cathy (‘Cat’ for short) said in her pleasant but squeaky voice, “Any activity that kills 8 million people per year is not acceptable. More than that, tobacco activity goes on the same side as a virus disease that has killed many of my frontliner friends. Anyone who joins COVID-19 is a bad-person and deserves to be put into a jail. Don’t take the side of this disgusting virus disease by making people more susceptible to this ferocious and horrible beast that is an enemy of all children and their families–and me. It’s my enemy and I am angry at my enemy making people very sick. We need to beat this virus and beat all the things on the viruses’ side. Tobacco is on the side of the virus. That’s #TobaccoExposed.”

“Fortunately, most people do not use tobacco products. That is why tobacco companies target children. Adults are too experienced and wise enough to know they should not use tobacco. But every time a patient who uses tobacco comes into the hospital with a bad cough, we know they are in big trouble and when they get a cancer plus high blood pressure from smoking then also catch the COVID virus, we never seem to be able to save their lives. They die. It is so unfair, they were tricked into using tobacco.”

‘Cat’s eyes looked wide-open, very smart, bright green. Cat was angry at the enemy of children and their families. Good. Because kids and their family need a friend like ‘Cat’. All she ever does in her life is fight illness that hurts families and she wants to fight this enemy too.

“The tobacco companies are liars,” says ‘Cat’. (Here is scientific proof of that going back 22 years. Tobacco-Exposed-PDF)

“They tell lies about everything and trick people to use tobacco in the same way bad strangers try to trick kids to get into the stranger car and the same way the drug dealers try to trick kids to try dangerous drugs that only kill kids. It’s so unfair.”

Yes, ‘Cat’ is correct. Thank you, ‘Cat”, for helping patients. Thank you for reminding children that tobacco is on the same side as COVID-19 and hurts families. That is indeed terribly unfair.


Stacy Simon of the American Cancer Society explains that “The focus of this year’s World No Tobacco Day, 31 May, is on protecting young people from the marketing of big tobacco companies and helping them avoid using tobacco and nicotine.”

Stacy Simon is obviously a smart lady to be helping protect children by exposing tobacco as an enemy of children and their families. It’s a fair thing to do, helping children.

Each year, the World Health Organization (WHO) sponsors this awareness day to highlight the health risks of using tobacco and to encourage governments to put policies into action that help to reduce smoking and the use of other tobacco products.

Feminine-Perspective Magazine and partners is asking children and youth to

Expose tobacco. Tobacco is unacceptable.

Listen to what the doctors at World Health Organization say: “For decades, the tobacco industry has deliberately employed strategic, aggressive and well-resourced tactics to attract youth to tobacco and nicotine products. Internal industry documents reveal in-depth research and calculated approaches designed to attract a new generation of tobacco users, from product design to marketing campaigns aimed at replacing the millions of people who die each year from tobacco-attributable diseases with new consumers – youth.”

“Oh my gosh,” says ‘Cat’. That is terrible. So unfair. I will be telling everybody that tobacco is bad. It’s only fair to do that.”

Think about what ‘Cat’, said. “Tobacco is on the side of the virus. That’s #TobaccoExposed.”

Those are strong words to say people who smoke are in grave danger from tobacco and the coronavirus. We need to beat that virus and tobacco because they are both on the same side together against children and their families. That is what ‘Cat’ is explaining to help get #TobaccoExposed.

FPM.news is sharing some good advice from people who care about children and their families:

  1. Message from the Canadian Minister of Health
  2. Message from the World Health Organization.

 

Dear Parents

  1. Tobacco kills up to half of its users. (WHO)
  2. Tobacco kills more than 8 million people each year. More than 7 million of those deaths are the result of direct tobacco use while around 1.2 million are the result of non-smokers being exposed to second-hand smoke. (WHO)
  3. Around 80% of the world’s 1.1 billion smokers live in low- and middle-income countries (WHO).
  4. Tobacco companies have shown that they will use all means, legal and illegal, to increase the use of their deadly products.
  5. You are the most important influence in your children’s lives. Don’t use tobacco products. Don’t smoke.
  6. Clearly and concisely tell your children you do not want them using e-cigarettes or tobacco products.
  7. Talk to your children about smoking when they are 5 or 6 years of age and maintain your message delivery through the high school years.
  8. Most children who are smoking started between age 11 and 13. That’s a median point. Some started younger.
  9. E-cigarette abuse among youth is a morbid  epidemic.
  10. Thank you, and good luck on your mission. We sincerely hope for you to have healthy and happy children with the very best that life has to offer.