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Amanda Cannatelli's Story

My mom began smoking when she was 10. She had seen the movie “Grease,” where Olivia Newton-John’s character starts smoking to become cool – and she thought smoking would make her popular too.

Instead, tobacco took her life. She was diagnosed with chronic bronchitis and then emphysema, which was followed by a lung transplant a year later.

But my mom’s transplanted lung was rejected. She was waiting to get on the transplant list again when complications from her rejected lung and depressed immune system led to her death.

She was only 31 when she died. I was 13. My sister was 11. Because of the deadly effects of tobacco, we both grew up without our mom.

This spring, I graduated from college, and my mom wasn’t here to see it. But I’m carrying her memory forward, by continuing her mission: reaching out to explain how smoking can tear apart families. 

What kids see on-screen matters.  If Hannah Montana started smoking, how many young girls would start too? And how many would be killed by tobacco use – like my mom was?

I don’t want other kids to know what it’s like to lose their parents to tobacco.  Won’t you join me by taking action in your community to protect the children you love?

-- Amanda Cannatelli