I believe that Zach Calef missed the point of the Just Eliminate Lies movement (Iowa State Daily, July 31).

He faults JEL for not offering a more “balanced” point of view with regards to their commercials, billboards, and newspaper articles on tobacco use. He states that the only goal of this group of Iowa teens is to fight the tobacco industry’s efforts to manipulate us into using their addictive deadly product.

And that seems wrong to him?

He claims that this is unfair because tobacco companies don’t have access to free speech. My dear Mr. Calef, you could not be more wrong. For decades the tobacco companies have had nothing but free speech with regards to “advertising” their products.

It is only recently that free speech has been granted to those opposed to smoking. At last, tobacco companies have had to grudgingly admit that yes, they did put extra ingredients into their tobacco to make it more addictive.

Former employees of tobacco companies have come forth to testify that these corporations have been doing this since day one. Tobacco companies knew that they were “hooking them as teenagers and would not let them go until they died.”

How true. I have buried both of my parents in the last few years because of smoking related illnesses, and I am not yet 40 years old. My father died of lung cancer and my mother of emphysema.

Perhaps Mr. Calef has never lost a loved one to cigarettes. Let me tell you, that experience is one I would not wish on my worst enemy.

I held my father’s hand as he died, though he could not feel my touch because a cancer-induced stroke had paralyzed what was left of his body.

I cradled my mother in my arms as she passed away, begging God and her own parents to please save her from the pain she was in. She had retreated so far into her past that she did not recognize me, her own daughter.

She died in such un-Godly misery I can’t begin to describe it for you.

So please, Mr Calef, do not knock the efforts of this grassroots movement. You state that these “anti-smoking brats” should do something more meaningful with their lives..

Well let me say that if by their efforts they keep one, just one, child from picking up that first cigarette, then their time has been well spent.

Diann Moorman

Human Development & Family Studies Ph. D. Candidate