Death of Smoker

I could not help but be drawn to “Life Ends Half-Lived for Defiant Ex-Smoker” (Nov. 25), about Claire Chasles-Kelly’s battle with cancer. As a former smoker of nearly 45 years, I wish I had been able to read it before I gave up smoking! It probably would have been a lot easier.

I thank God every day that I gave up smoking when I did. This past April I lost an extremely good friend, a number of years younger than I, who passed away due to her smoking. She, more than any other person, was perhaps responsible for my giving it up.

Your article is correct in that it was nearly five years post-quitting before I did not crave a cigarette.

BETTY LINDSEY

North Hollywood

* Nowhere in the articles does Chasles-Kelly acknowledge her responsibility for her self-destruction. Yet, she and her family were portrayed as heroines, so “defiant” to defeat cancer, that, even at her final moments, she received intensive care and placement on a respirator. Wasn’t this a waste of health care resources?

Society has yet to come to accept the limits of our health care resources; there is not enough money to keep everyone alive when the clinical state is hopeless. Society would have been better served had your writer focused on these issues, rather than highlight the emotional aspects of a woman who will never play with her granddaughter.

ZOLTAN LUCAS

Rancho Mirage

* The article was very devastating to those of us who are suffering from that disease. I understand that the end is not a pretty one, and that the article was intended to show the results of smoking, but the details were very disturbing.

WARREN HOUSEMAN

San Luis Obispo

* How can tobacco company executives read the article about Chasles-Kelly’s death from lung cancer and not change their advertising to: “Please don’t use our product”?

ROBERT H. CONGELLIERE