These 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 feeling great!
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 to produce the same effect—aka the
definition of “tolerance.”
In this case, more and more nicotine must be taken to reproduce the same initial effects on the
body and now the brain...
That is why trying to break the cycle of tobacco use and addiction is so extremely difficult. The
known physical ill effects and consequences of nicotine use—cancer, hypertension, stroke, etc.
to name just a few—are taken over by the brain’s false thinking that it needs more and more,
regardless of the continuing damage of nicotine upon the body itself.
As stated earlier, the adolescent brain does not fully mature until the age of 25, and so it is
more at risk than the adult brain to be fooled by this negative impact cycle and this very sneaky
and bad “home invader.”
Since the younger brain (< 25 years) continues to build better and faster “driveways,” or
synapses between nerve cells, than the older one (>25 years), the addiction potential is that
much stronger and deadlier.
| apologize again for the length of this written statement, but | am in full support of the passage
of 0-19-037 to raise the tobacco purchasing age to 21 without hesitation to allow the
developing brains of our future leaders of tomorrow—who will someday be seating in these
same seats you occupy tonight—more valuable time to not be exposed and traumatized by this
powerful and dangerous drug.
|am more than happy to meet or talk in person at another time if any member of the full Board
of Nashua Alderman would like further medical information on this critically important matter.
Respectfully Submitted,
Charles T. Cappetta, MD FAAP
Nashua Public Health Department Board of Health Member
Dartmouth Hitchcock Nashua Pediatrics
2300 Southwood Drive
Nashua, NH 03063
Phone 603-577-4400
