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Hi, I'm Megan Alexander and this is Middle East Tomorrow. Five years ago, the US brought leaders from Israel, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain together to sign the Abraham Accords. That historic day ignited a cross border movement of change makers who are joining forces to reshape the region. Join me as I uncover the stories of the people transforming the Middle east today and tomorrow. Go to partners.foxnews.com met. Hello and welcome to this episode of Kennedy Saves the World. I'm here today to save your lungs. Very interesting op ed in the Wall Street Journal about the noted rise in cigarette use among 20 somethings, which seems so bizarre to me because as vaping fell into fashion, supposedly especially with high schoolers, it is now falling out of fashion. And maybe it's because they are hearing stories about cancer and lung transplantation on younger Americans who vape. Because vaping can be absolutely horrendous for your lungs. I hate it. I don't think it's good for you. But cigarettes are awful. Like cigarettes are a known cancer causer and people have known that for generations. You know, it's like my grandfather died from pancreatic cancer and lung cancer that he probably got from smoking. And I know people in their 60s with emphysema because they've smoked for decades. They started as teenagers and they never stopped and they tried to quit. They and you know, in the 90s they took the gum and the patch and then eventually you have all of these other nicotine avenues and. But people, according to this article, younger people are going back to smoking because I guess vaping was just a trend. And I smoked from 15 to 19 and I smoked a lot between 17 and 19 to the point where, you know, when you talk to your doctors and even though it's been decades since I quit, I look at that and go, yeah, but you still are at pretty high risk for not high risk, but there is a substantial risk for lung cancer because you can't unring that bell even if you only spent a few years smoking. But as your lungs are young and developing, it's just a really bad idea. I know vaping isn't great, but vaping is certainly better than smoking. So if you need nicotine when I needed nicotine because I was so addicted to it when I was 19, when I quit, I didn't have the money to chew the gum. Patches were, you know, only recently introduced. So I started chewing tobacco. That was the only thing I could do. And I didn't want little black bits in my teeth, so I chewed the pouches, it was like Skull Bandits, little wintergreen pouches. And I had to spit all the time and it was pretty gross. But it got me to quit within a couple months. There was a TV hypnotist, not Jennifer Aniston's boyfriend, but a man named David. And he was a guest on Kevin and Beam when I was an intern on their radio show on kroq. And he, he pulled my glasses off and he said, kennedy, you are no longer a smoker. And I never smoked a cigarette after that happened. But I did use the Skull Bandits for a couple months and Kevin and Bean made fun of me pretty uproariously for that. And they made Brian suits and I go out into a parking lot and have a spitting contest when they found out that I was using Skull Bandits, which are gross. So now I haven't smoked in 34 years, which is glorious. Although I don't know if you have also quit smoking and if you quit smoking years ago. I don't know if you have the same dreams that I do. So I have dreams where in my dream I'm smoking and I'm like, when did I start smoking and why? And I get so mad at myself, I'm like, ah, I quit. But here I am smoking again. It's this. It's like the anxiety dream. When you go back to college, you. So I have, as an aside, I have a UCLA dream at least once a month. And it is the most realistic dream where the dream starts. I'm at ucla, even though I live in New York, I'm at ucla. I've signed up for a full load of classes that include history, English and math. I don't know what the other one is. And it's two weeks until finals and I can no longer drop any of the classes and I. And I haven't studied for anything and I have to cram all with the job that I've got all of these classes and somehow, and it is the most anxiety producing dream I still have, that about smoking. Don't go anywhere more. Kennedy saves the World right after this.
