Board of Aldermen 04-09-2019 Page 12
weeks ago | had the opportunity to participate in an Awareness is Healing Walk with over 300 people who
were there to remember loved ones that were lost due to overdose due to their addiction. There were
family, there were friends, their hearts were hurting, they were sad; but they were also happy to be there
together with their community to make a difference.
This issue is about what Nicotine does to the brain; how it changes the brain chemistry. Imagine if we
could spend, if we could expand the life expectancy of all of those members in our communities so that
they could meet their full potential and contribute to society living long and healthy lives, free of chronic
diseases, free of hypertension and free of addiction to substances. Imagine if we could extend the time of
a young person developing the habit of using tobacco or Nicotine to allow for their full development. We
don’t have to imagine this. We can make this a reality here in Nashua; in support of O-19-037.
I’ve heard this economic impact on businesses. A while ago we passed legislation to not having smoking in
restaurants. At that time there was a thought that business would be lost because people wouldn't go
because they couldn’t smoke in the restaurants; that didn’t happen. What do we know? We know that
$729 million dollars were spent on tobacco-related diseases with 19,000 deaths in 2018. This is a Public
Health Issue and the Public Health is our entire community’s responsibility and preserving the health of our
youth in this community and the communities abroad, is all of our responsibility.
| have a letter here from one of the members of our Board of Health who is a pediatrician who practices
here and he did send a letter out to members of the Board of Aldermen. It is a long letter and I'll just read
parts of it. Dr. Cappetta does apologize for not being able to be here this evening because of a prior
commitment. But he does stand in support of this legislation and does believe in raising the age of
purchasing tobacco to 21. That would include all tobacco-related items such as cigarettes, cigars, chewing
tobacco, and Electronic Vaping devices.
The well-known addictive properties of Nicotine, which is the main substance in all of these above-
mentioned products is especially relevant to him as a pediatrician for over 30 years. The development of
mature brains does not take place until the age of 25. This fact is well-known is scientifically supported and
is indisputable. As we all know the brain is a computer control at the top tower of the body and is made up
of a complex system of nerves and neurons that send and receive messages to and from all parts of the
body to do everything we take for granted; talking, walking, breathing, movement, digestion, etc. Without
these intricate series of sequentially transmitted messages being passed along from nerve to the next, like
the game of telephone tag we used to do in elementary school, we would not survive.
Each nerve cell sits next to each other separated by a small space called a synapse, much like two
neighboring houses on the same street, separated by a common driveway between them. In order to get
from one house to another, the neighbors need to cross the driveway to get to the other side. Furthermore,
in order to actually enter your next door neighbor's house, with permission of course, you need to have a
specific key to allow for you to enter. This simplistic view of how these friendly neighbors coexist with each
other can now be applied to how Nicotine affects this transfer of messages. Nicotine is similar to an
unwanted intruder in the neighborhood who has somehow gotten ahold of the house key and is able to get
into that house and to the house next door and cause havoc with them.
Nicotine acts by attaching itself to one end of the same nerve cells which in turn triggers the release of feel
good chemicals such as the hormone called Dopamine that leads to the body thinking that this good feeling
is great and it is wonderful and it wants to continue to get more and more of this stuff. And who does not
like to feel good? This deceptive action of Nicotine to stimulate the increased release of good feeling
hormones is the beginning of addiction. The incipient feelings of physical addiction lead to the body
wanting more and more of that which caused such a great rush or high in the first place. Thus, smoking,
chewing, or vaping activities increase to sustain this powerful sensation of a great feeling.
This in turn leads to the hardest part of Nicotine usage, the mental addiction, where now the brain is fooled
into thinking that the Nicotine that was once considered bad is now considered good because of the need
to have more and more of it in order to produce the same effect — aka the definition of tolerance. In this
