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Voice your Support for No First Use

lew patrieAsheville Citizen Times
Lew Patrie MD
August 14, 2019

Voice your support for
No First Use


On August 6, WNC Physicians for Social Responsibility’s members from as far away as Hickory merged with Veterans for Peace, Chapter 099’s weekly Peace Vigil.

This downtown Asheville event not only memorialized the 74th anniversary of the nuclear devastation of Hiroshima, but warned of increasing likelihood of a global catastrophe from the world’s existing stockpiles.

Today, with 15,000 nuclear weapons globally, most with explosive yields much greater than the two dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The threat of nuclear war remains terrifyingly high and has been increasing, asserted by many, including Physicians for Social Responsibility, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Union of Concerned Scientists and United Nations.

One precaution would be for the United States to establish a No First Use policy, declaring the U.S. will never use these dangerous weapons first and that no one person would possess the power to launch our nuclear weapons.

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, most U. S. citizens already support a No First Use policy. If that includes you, you have the power to inform elected officials, and also by writing more letters to the media.

Lew Patrie, M. D., Asheville

Mission Statement

PREVENTING WHAT WE CANNOT CURE: Physicians for Social Responsibility is the medical and public health voice working to prevent the use or spread of nuclear weapons and to slow, stop and reverse global warming and the toxic degradation of the environment.