Jourrnal Essay, Research Paper

Journal Abstract

People effect others without even knowing it when they choose to smoke. When someone lights up a cigarette and others inhale secondary smoke, you directly effect their health. Most smokers deny the fact that they are damaging others, or often don t even realize what they are doing. As a smoker I often feel that if someone doesn t enjoy what I am doing they can go somewhere else. This is a bad attitude to have and after reading this article it has helped me realize more of what smoking can do to others.

Evidence about cigarette smoke affecting unborn children continues to mount. The article gives specific birth defects that can result from smoke inhalation by the expecting mother. Some of these defects are lower birth weight, slower developmental and social adjustment , and reduced reading skills. Also another statistic states in the article that smoking mothers reduce the infant s chance of survival at birth by as much as 50% compared to non-smoking mothers. These problems show that when a mother s smokes she endangers her unborn child health profusely.

Another topic the article touches on is the dangers of second hand smoke to innocent bystanders. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) released findings in November of 1999 stating that conclusive evidence was found linking 18 people with coronary heart disease to exposure with second hand smoke. Every year between 35,000 and 62,000 people are estimated by the NCI to have died from coronary heart disease due to second hand smoke exposure. Although the findings are truly eye opening, most people who occasionally are exposed to second hand smoke for short periods of time should have