Should You Use Tobacco Essay, Research Paper

Should You Use Tobacco?

There are about 1.5 million smokers that are age seventeen or younger. Many

historians believe smoking started with the Native Americans. There are many uses of the

tobacco leaf. Also there are many things to consider if you thinking about using any type

of tobacco. First, one must realize there is illness associated with the use of tobacco.

Secondly, the cost of using tobacco keeps going up every year and often the amount being

used increases. Thirdly, if one is already a smoker and wishes to quit, there are places one

can turn to for help.

The Native Americans used to smoke for different purposes. When the Spanish came

over to America from Spain, they enjoyed smoking and took the idea back to Spain with

them. Sir Walter Raleigh is believed to have started people smoking in Europe. During

World War I, smoking became more and more popular.

In Europe tobacco was smoked, used as snuff, and chewed. Cigarettes started in

Mexico when tobacco was wrapped in corn husks and then smoked. Today there are

cigarettes, pipes, cigars, chew, and snuff. Some stick the snuff straight up their noses.

Tobacco is very addicting. The nicotine in the tobacco is what causes the addiction.

There are many illness that one can acquire from using tobacco. Some of them are

lung, breast, mouth, pharynx, esophagus, and heart cancer. Smoking can also cause

strokes, severe respiratory problems that include; pneumonia, chronic bronchitis,

emphusema, and more. Tobacco causes birth defects, reproductive disorders, stained

teeth and fingernails, wrinkled skin, and bad breath. Cigarettes are a factor in many

automobile accidents. Children who smoke are much more likely to become herion,

cocaine, and crack addicts. Tobacco can even cause death! It kills more than eight

thousand people per week, which is more than 400,000 per year. Second hand smoke

causes non-smokers to have some problems as well. The use of tobacco kills more

Americans per year than alcohol, herion, crack, automobile, plane, and train accidents,

homicides, suicides, and AIDS combined! Each year almost 100,000 Americans die

from lung cancer alone.

Experts have estimated that about twenty-four million men, about twenty-two

million women, and about three million teen-agers smoke. Close to 3,000 teen-agers start

smoking every day. In 1994 Americans smoked about 485 billion cirgaretts. Teen-agers

smoke about one billion packs of cigaretts every year. Americans spend twenty billion

dollars each year to light over 600 billion cigaretts.

There are places for smokers to turn to if they want to stop smoking. Here are a few

of

the agencies; American Cancer Society, American Lung Association, American Heart

Association, Smoke Enders. People can turn to hypnosis, filter packs, perscription drugs,

acypuncture, and a few other techniques to stop smoking.

So, after reading the information I have provided, do you want to use tobacco? Do

you

have enough money to support a tobacco habit? Do you want to die early from cancer or

another tobaccco related illness? If I were you, I would say no to all of these questions!

So, what is your answer? Hopefully it is NO!

Arkava, Morton and John Russel, Coping With Smoking, The Rosen Publishing

Group, Inc., New York, 1984.

McMillan, Daniel, Teen Smoking, Understanding The Risk, Enslaw Publishers, Inc.,

Springfield, New Jersy, 1998.