AfterGlow
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By GAIL SCHONTZLER Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, January 17, 2009
If you want teenagers to pay attention to your message about the dangers of tobacco and drugs, there’s nothing like showing them a frozen monkey brain. Or better yet, a frozen human brain.
“Eeyoooh” and “ooohhh” and “Sweet” rippled through an assembly of hundreds of Bozeman High School freshmen Thursday when Victor DeNoble did a show-and-tell like they’d never seen before.
DeNoble, 59, a Ph.D. scientist specializing in addiction and drugs, spoke this week to hundreds of Bozeman middle school and high school students and teachers, telling a story as dramatic as his props.
DeNoble played a key role in exposing the big lie by big tobacco corporations that cigarettes weren’t addictive. His story loosely inspired the movie “The Insider.”
On April 14, 1994, when seven tobacco executives famously stood in front of Congress, raised their hands and swore that nicotine wasn’t a drug, DeNoble said he and his wife were being held by the FBI in a secret warehouse.
Two weeks later, despite fears for his safety, DeNoble testified and told the world the truth about nicotine.
The tobacco giant Phillip Morris had hired him originally to solve a problem. Cigarettes killed 138,000 Americans a year with heart attacks. The company wanted him to develop a “safe cigarette” that could still get people addicted, but not kill them.
Working with lab rats, DeNoble figured out how to give them tiny doses of nicotine. The rats got hooked n not because of sexy movies, advertising or wanting to feel cool, as tobacco firms claimed n but because nicotine addiction changes the brain.
Brain cells communicate by sending out chemical messages. The chemical dopamine sends the everyday message “I feel good,” he said. Nicotine makes brain cells send out lots of extra dopamine. It’s like one brain cell is shouting the message “I FEEL GOOD!”
The other cell reacts, he said, with “Why are you yelling?” To protect itself, the receiving brain cell makes something like earmuffs, DeNoble said. After that, the brain can no longer hear a normal “I feel good.” It needs the message to be shouted, pumped up by nicotine.
Even if the smoker quits, the “earmuffs” stay put for five to 10 years. That’s why ex-smokers keep craving tobacco.
To prove what he found in rats and monkeys was also true in humans, DeNoble needed a smoker’s brain. He persuaded a man dying of cancer to allow his brain to be dissected after death. The man said, “I quit smoking two years ago n I wake up wanting cigarettes every morning.”
In 1983, DeNoble said, he told tobacco company execs he had found the “safe cigarette.” At first they said great n this will save thousands of lives.
But in 1984, they told him they couldn’t come out with a “safe cigarette” after telling the U.S. government since 1953 that tobacco was safe. And a safe cigarette would wreck sales of their other cigarettes. DeNoble was fired.
While his partner was upstairs getting fired, DeNoble loaded up a van with boxes of secret lab documents. He stored them in his garage. He tried to get all the evidence to Congress through an attorney, but the attorney later claimed it was stolen.
Ten years later, DeNoble heard the tobacco execs were going before Congress. His wife astonished him by pulling out photos she had kept from his secret stash n proof that he had tested rats for nicotine addiction. They mailed a rat photo anonymously to the FBI, which tracked him down in three days by his fingerprints.
DeNoble was taken before a judge and ordered to break his secrecy agreement with the tobacco company. He told the judge everything.
Not long after, he got a call at home n from President Clinton. He told the president he was “scared to death.” The FBI took him and his wife into protective custody. That’s how DeNoble got to appear before Congress and drop his bombshell n the truth that nicotine is a highly addictive drug.
Cocaine, methamphetamine, marijuana, ecstasy and alcohol also work by getting the brain addicted, and can cause permanent health problems, from the ability to learn to heart damage to cancer, he told students.
“The first time you use any drug, your brain changes,” DeNoble said. “Once it changes, it will be changed the rest of your life.”
Freshmen applauded DeNoble.
Solomon Wendt, 14, said he hadn’t known about nicotine’s effects. “Now I’ll definitely stay away.”
“I never would do” drugs, said Katie Neal, 15. “They’re more scary now that I know what’s involved.”
link
Saturday, January 17, 2009
If you want teenagers to pay attention to your message about the dangers of tobacco and drugs, there’s nothing like showing them a frozen monkey brain. Or better yet, a frozen human brain.
“Eeyoooh” and “ooohhh” and “Sweet” rippled through an assembly of hundreds of Bozeman High School freshmen Thursday when Victor DeNoble did a show-and-tell like they’d never seen before.
DeNoble, 59, a Ph.D. scientist specializing in addiction and drugs, spoke this week to hundreds of Bozeman middle school and high school students and teachers, telling a story as dramatic as his props.
DeNoble played a key role in exposing the big lie by big tobacco corporations that cigarettes weren’t addictive. His story loosely inspired the movie “The Insider.”
On April 14, 1994, when seven tobacco executives famously stood in front of Congress, raised their hands and swore that nicotine wasn’t a drug, DeNoble said he and his wife were being held by the FBI in a secret warehouse.
Two weeks later, despite fears for his safety, DeNoble testified and told the world the truth about nicotine.
The tobacco giant Phillip Morris had hired him originally to solve a problem. Cigarettes killed 138,000 Americans a year with heart attacks. The company wanted him to develop a “safe cigarette” that could still get people addicted, but not kill them.
Working with lab rats, DeNoble figured out how to give them tiny doses of nicotine. The rats got hooked n not because of sexy movies, advertising or wanting to feel cool, as tobacco firms claimed n but because nicotine addiction changes the brain.
Brain cells communicate by sending out chemical messages. The chemical dopamine sends the everyday message “I feel good,” he said. Nicotine makes brain cells send out lots of extra dopamine. It’s like one brain cell is shouting the message “I FEEL GOOD!”
The other cell reacts, he said, with “Why are you yelling?” To protect itself, the receiving brain cell makes something like earmuffs, DeNoble said. After that, the brain can no longer hear a normal “I feel good.” It needs the message to be shouted, pumped up by nicotine.
Even if the smoker quits, the “earmuffs” stay put for five to 10 years. That’s why ex-smokers keep craving tobacco.
To prove what he found in rats and monkeys was also true in humans, DeNoble needed a smoker’s brain. He persuaded a man dying of cancer to allow his brain to be dissected after death. The man said, “I quit smoking two years ago n I wake up wanting cigarettes every morning.”
In 1983, DeNoble said, he told tobacco company execs he had found the “safe cigarette.” At first they said great n this will save thousands of lives.
But in 1984, they told him they couldn’t come out with a “safe cigarette” after telling the U.S. government since 1953 that tobacco was safe. And a safe cigarette would wreck sales of their other cigarettes. DeNoble was fired.
While his partner was upstairs getting fired, DeNoble loaded up a van with boxes of secret lab documents. He stored them in his garage. He tried to get all the evidence to Congress through an attorney, but the attorney later claimed it was stolen.
Ten years later, DeNoble heard the tobacco execs were going before Congress. His wife astonished him by pulling out photos she had kept from his secret stash n proof that he had tested rats for nicotine addiction. They mailed a rat photo anonymously to the FBI, which tracked him down in three days by his fingerprints.
DeNoble was taken before a judge and ordered to break his secrecy agreement with the tobacco company. He told the judge everything.
Not long after, he got a call at home n from President Clinton. He told the president he was “scared to death.” The FBI took him and his wife into protective custody. That’s how DeNoble got to appear before Congress and drop his bombshell n the truth that nicotine is a highly addictive drug.
Cocaine, methamphetamine, marijuana, ecstasy and alcohol also work by getting the brain addicted, and can cause permanent health problems, from the ability to learn to heart damage to cancer, he told students.
“The first time you use any drug, your brain changes,” DeNoble said. “Once it changes, it will be changed the rest of your life.”
Freshmen applauded DeNoble.
Solomon Wendt, 14, said he hadn’t known about nicotine’s effects. “Now I’ll definitely stay away.”
“I never would do” drugs, said Katie Neal, 15. “They’re more scary now that I know what’s involved.”
link
