Should Smoking Be Banned Essay, Research Paper

Should Smoking be banned

Completely?

In my opinion, I believe that smoking should be completely banned. Not only is smoking any form of tobacco dangerous to you health, but it is also bad for the health of those around you.

Do most people in the United States smoke? Actually no, the majority of the people in the U.S. do not smoke. Only about 25% or 1 out of 4 adults smoke and only 20% or 1 out of 5 teen s do.1 Most people (teens) start around the age of twelve to fourteen.1 The time of death for the people who do smoke is about fifteen years earlier than non smokers around their early sixties.2

In this past decade, the rate of smokers has been quite low, but every day 3000 people start smoking. That equals about 1,000,000 people a year.3 To balance the number of people who start though; about 1,200 people die from smoking each day, which leads up to about 1,438,000 deaths from smoking a year.4 That s a lot of deaths, which can be prevented.

Who is the most vulnerable to the cigarette marketing ads? Kids and teens are by far the most vulnerable. Especially vulnerable are those children who have low self-esteem, low academic achievement, no goals and low social status. Kids with these problems are more likely to be prone to give in to the pressures of siblings, peers and the media. To try to discourage teens from beginning the habit, most states have raised the taxes on cigarettes. Some, such as the District of Columbia have raised it to a high of 25 cents per pack.5 On the other hand, the states where smoking is a major cash crop such as Kentucky and Tennessee, only have a tax of 2.5 cents per pack, so they don t discourage kids from buying.6

Why is Smoking so bad for you? Cigarettes contain over seven hundred (700) chemical additives. Some of the chemicals you are less likely to know about are the heavy metals, humectants, casting agents, pesticides and insecticides added into a cigarette. The more well know chemicals are tar, Carbon and nicotine.

Tar is released when you light a cigarette and the tobacco begins to burn. The cigarette reaches about 1600-1800 degrees Fahrenheit on the ash ends and can reach up to 2000 degrees Fahrenheit in the center.7 Tar is very harmful to the human respiratory system because it collects and clogs up the bronchi and it contributes a great deal to cancer and respiratory diseases.

The Carbon in a cigarette is extremely dangerous. Government regulations only permit the level of Carbon to be at the maximum 50ppm (parts per million) in an enclosed area.8 Yet the CO levels in cigarette smoke can reach up to 40,000ppm.9 That s way over the limit. The Carbon binds with the Hemoglobin in the blood stream. When that happens the Hemoglobin won t allow the red blood cells to carry and transport oxygen throughout the human body.

Nicotine is a colorless, odorless oily substance that occurs naturally in nature. It is the chemical in the cigarette that makes it addictive. Nicotine begins to kick in after about 15-20 seconds and by then has reached every single part of your body. Nicotine damages your brain right after you first smoke by opening up the receptors in it. When you sleep at night the Nicotine level drops very low and that is the reason people usually reach for a cigarette right after they wake up.

What are the risks of smoking? Smoking has two kinds of effects, long term and short-term effects. The short term effects happen after a few years of smoking and usually are coughing, wheezing, dizziness, nausea, shortness of breath, phlegm production, bad breath, decreased physical fitness and reduced lung function. Although those may not seem bad or even noticeable at the time they are nothing compared to the long-term effects. The long-term effects, which happen after years and years of smoking, include Emphysema, heart disease, pregnancy complications; facial wrinkles and the well know disease Cancer.

The different forms of Cancer caused by smoking are very large. Although you may not receive all of them, you are at risk to all of them. Fourteen percent more actually.10 The forms are lung, pancreatic, cervix, larynx, mouth, esophagus, bladder, kidney and an increased chance of breast cancer. Smoking is also extremely harmful to an unborn fetus in its mother. The drug enters the mother s blood stream, which is then passed on to the baby s blood after it crosses over the placenta. The effects of the drug infecting the baby are lessened weight at birth, increased chances of spontaneous abortion and of course death.

Is second hand smoke really that bad? Yes, second hand smoke is almost as bad for you as actually smoking a cigarette. For every 20 seconds that a smoker is intaking a cigarette, you, the bystander receives 9.5 more minutes of the toxins than they are.11

Second hand smoke contains all of the toxins a cigarette does and can sometimes have more depending on your surroundings. There are two forms of second hand smoke, Sidestream and Mainstream. Mainstream smoke is smoke being blown out from a smoker and Sidestream smoke is smoke wafting from a smoldering cigarette.

Why is second hand smoke so bad for young kids to live with? The toxins that fill a house with second hand smoke are the same as filling a house with the two highly dangerous chemicals asbestos and radon. There are also respiratory diseases that happen to children because of second hand smoke. They include bronchitis, croup, pneumonia, chronic cough, wheezing and asthma.

So, from my information I hope you have come to the same conclusion as I, that smoking does nothing for the human race and should be banned completely.

Bibliographies

1.) Lang, Susan S. and Marks, Beth H. Teens and Tobacco. Canada: Fitzhenery &

Whiteside Ltd, 1996.

2.) McCuen, Gary E. Tobacco: People Profits and Public Health. Wisconsin: Gary E.

McCuen Publications Inc.,!997

3.) Snyder, Solomon H. Nicotine, An Old-Fashioned Addiction. New York: Chelsea

House Publishers, 1985

4.) Stepney, Rob. Tobacco. New York: Aladdin Ltd, 1987

5.) http//www.nysagd.org/tobacco.html

Foot Notes

1-11. Lang, Susan S. and Marks, Beth H. Teens and Tobacco. Canada: Fitzhenery &

Whiteside Ltd, 1996.

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