Smoking I spent the first ten years of my life learning right from wrong and good from bad. Better and smarter people than myself spent hour after hour passing on lifetimes of knowledge and advice to me. Ms Tedamore, my fourth grade teacher, managed to getit into my head that rules must be followed. I understood that I wasn't just to follow the rules that I agreed with, but I was to follow all the rules. Even the one that said I had to carry that dirty piece of brown wood stained with years of ten-year-old palm sweat and the words "HALL PASS" with me when I went to the bathroom. If I could follow that rule, why did I break therule I knew could break my mother's heart? When it came to rules, my mom was simple. She only had two. Do as your parents have asked you, and don't smoke. Ever. You see, she had already lost one parent to lung cancer, and was fighting a losing battle with my father's failing health due to cigarettes. However, my friends were on another road altogether. In the following semesters, a few of them started drinking. They would even compel me to take a few puffs, but the thought of my mother’s sad face wouldn’t let me do it. Later on, in the sophomore year, a few of them took on drugs. Due to this, I began to feel I was in the wrong company, so I started avoiding them. They would never attend classes. The whole time they would stay in their apartments, smoking weed and cigarettes. Yet, this was not the end. That was still to come. After a few weeks, they began to take some acid drugs, too. When I came to know of their condition, I began to feel sympathetic towards them, and pitied them. I felt guilty for not being able to stop them from doing such things. Today some of them don’t have any money, friends or family, and they are still not giving up drugs. One of them has been admitted in the hospital for weeks now due to some breathing disorder. It was this extreme condition that has made me pick this topic. I am eager to increase my knowledge...