Cigarette Must Be Banned

12/07/2012
Cigarettes Must Be Banned Everyone knows the dangerous impacts of using cigarettes. However, not many people know how huge the issue is. In America, an enormous number of people die every year due to cigarette use. In particular, in 1990, approximately half of the preventable deaths in America were caused by cigarette use (Tobacco and Health). According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, cigarette use contributes more to the causes of deaths in America than the combination of alcohol, cocaine, crack, heroin, homicide, suicide, fires, car accidents, and AIDS (“Tobacco and Health”). Cigarettes are still allowed to be used because of their huge profits for the governments. However, cigarettes must be banned because they are seriously harmful not only for the smokers, but also for surrounding people, and the environment. In spite of the fact that using tobacco is the leading cause of dangerous diseases and illnesses, including cancers and cardiovascular disease, more than twenty percent of Americans and Canadians still smoke every year (Bellver, Melo and Soares). The impacts of tobacco are larger than smokers could imagine. Tobacco smoke contains more than two hundred toxic chemicals. More seriously, sixty-nine of those chemicals are classified as carcinogens (Kushihashi). This reliable statistic proves that a common disease caused by tobacco use is cancer. Over 150,000 deaths were caused by tobacco related cancer in 1990 (“Deaths Caused by Smoking in the U.S., 1990”). It is clear that using tobacco in the long term affects the smokers’ health directly. Due to the dangerous effects on their health, the more the smokers use tobacco, the sooner the smokers die. Among those smokers, many of them are teenagers. Although teens are prohibited from smoking, the number of teens smoking keeps increasing. In particular, while over twelve percent of teens smoked in 2008, the percentage soared to 20.2 percent in 2011 (Splete). The health of these people is put in danger more since they began smoking at a young age. Teens who smoke do not think about the health problems that they may encounter in the long run. Instead, they focus more on their social status, and what others may think of them in the future. Thus, since laws cannot prevent teens from smoking, the governments have to prevent teens from being exposed to cigarettes. In addition, another type of smokers who are not supposed to smoke is pregnant women. Surprisingly, over thirteen percent of Americans continue smoking during pregnancy ( Bellver, Melo and Soares). It is obvious that the cigarette smoke does not only affect the pregnant women, but also their babies. Those women possibly know the impacts of cigarettes on them and their babies. However, since tobacco is addictive, many people who use cigarettes have trouble quitting. Thus, cigarettes are not simply a problem for people who smoke, but also for the people around them who do not want to smoke. Since smoking can easily spread in the air, cigarettes are harmful for not only smokers, but for those around them. For years it had been thought that smoking only affects smokers, and nonsmokers were not at risk at all. However, after years of research, it had been found that second hand smoke from the cigarettes causes much harm to nonsmokers. In particular, people who have no choice to breathe the second hand smoke are highly at risk of diabetes and obesity (Klatz). In research that was done with 6300 participants, Theodore C. Friedman and colleagues from Charles R. Drew University (California, US) found out that second hand smokers tend to have type-2 diabetes (Klatz). In addition, second hand smokers also possibly have high blood sugar when they have fasting blood work done (Klatz). In addition, many people have breathing problems such as asthma, so they may suffer from attacks due to cigarette smoke. Breathing is hard for those people; it is wrong to make their illness worse. Among those second hand smokers, children are affected even further. In the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data from 1999 to 2006, among 6,421 children aged from eight to seventeen, approximately 32 percent of them were exposed to second hand smoke (Otto). That is a really sad reality since those children have to suffer consequences from their parents’ bad behaviors. Specifically, children who are second hand smokers have high blood pressure (Otto). Jill Baumgartner, Ph.D., agreed when she said: "We found a similar (blood pressure) effect for children exposed to really low levels as for children exposed to higher levels, (reinforcing) the notion that there really is no acceptable exposure level for second hand smoke" (Otto). Basically, she was saying no matter how much or how little a child is exposed to second hand smoke, the child’s health is badly affected. Therefore, governments have to ban using cigarettes in order to protect children’s health. Likewise, women who do not smoke but live with smokers are at high risk of illnesses and diseases. In particular, compared with women who are not second hand smokers, those who are secondhand smokers face a high risk of breast cancer (Is breast cancer associated with tobacco smoking? USA). This is not fair to people who have to suffer the bad impacts of cigarettes when they do not want to. However, there is no way to eliminate the harmful smoke since it is easily spread, but we can eliminate the source where the smoke comes from. One further point that should be taken into account is that cigarette smoke does affect the environment as well. Cigarette smoke produces carbon monoxide, so it is a cause of global warming (Tobacco and Environment). Additionally, it is a well-known fact that cigarette smoke has negative effects on smokers and second hand smokers. However, not many people know the existence of third hand smoke. Secondhand smoke and third hand smoke come from the same source, which is the smoke from cigarettes. However, while secondhand smoke is breathed by people around smokers, the third hand smoke remains in the air for certain amount of time, and reacts with other chemicals to form air pollutants (Tillett). Specifically, it is reemitted into the gas phase or reacts with oxidants, or other compounds present in the environment to form secondary contaminants, some of them are carcinogenic and toxic for humans’ health (Matt GE). For example, nicotine and nitrous acid in the cigarette react with each other, and form tobacco-specific nitrosamines, which can react with the ozone. The product of this reaction is formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, and benzaldehyde, which are very harmful for the environment (Tillett). In addition, third hand smoke can adhere to clothes, furniture or indoor environment for a long time after secondhand smoke has gone. It forms a bad smell for the environment. Besides the smoke of cigarettes, using them has other effects on the environment as well. It has been found out that there were approximately 4,300 house fires a year caused by smokers’ materials from 1995 to 2005 (Tobacco and Environment). Furthermore, according to the same article, the most common waste on street is the used cigarette filter. For example, in a research in England, 70 percent of street garbage is cigarette waste (Tobacco and Environment). Thus, cigarettes contribute not only to air pollution, but also to ground pollution. The production of cigarettes has a strong impact on the environment as well. First, the production of cigarettes plays a big role in destroying the environment. Cellulose acetate, which is the plastic used to make cigarette filters, takes up to twelve years to decompose (“Tobacco and Environment”). There are millions of cigarettes that have been used everyday, and those filters contribute a huge part to the Earth’s pollution. Moreover, since selling tobacco has more profits than other plants, there are fewer lands to grow crops in order to make room for growing tobacco (Tobacco and Environment). It is painful to acknowledge that the food crops that could be grown instead of tobacco could feed between 10 and 20 million people (Tobacco and Environment). Thus, there is no reason to produce these poisonous materials because they damage Mother Nature and the planet we live on. However, if cigarettes did not have advantages, they would not be tolerated. Governments still allow selling cigarettes because they bring in huge profits to their fund. To reduce the smokers or the amount of cigarettes they smoke, the governments increase the tax on cigarettes. In America, the tax on cigarettes was raised from 24 cents to $1.49 per pack (Dunea). Thus, the governments have a huge profit from cigarette tax. In particular, cigarette tax annually contributes to the U.S. federal government fund $16 billion (Dunea). Nevertheless, to look at the big picture, the governments lose more than they gain. In contrast with profits of cigarettes, people’s health and the environment are put in danger. The quality of health decreases, which means that people cannot work harder to help the country’s economy increase. Those people’s incomes decline, so the governments have to spend money to support them. In America, the federal government has to spend approximately $20 billion every year for treatment of diseases and illnesses caused by tobacco products (Rauch). What is more, when the environment is polluted, it is the responsibility of governments to spend money to fix it. Obviously, the profits of the governments are not as important and enormous as alerting people to the serious situation of humans’ health and the environment. Thus, the governments should not be afraid of prohibiting cigarette use. The government may be afraid of the extreme reactions of smokers if a law of a cigarette ban is issued. Those who disagree with the idea of banning cigarettes declare that this is a Democratic country, and smokers have rights too. They further claim that everyone is entitled to do whatever they please as long as they do not go against the law. Moreover, they state that they are not disobeying the law; non-smokers can leave whenever they please. It is no more than fair for the smokers to leave because they are putting others at risk for a number of illnesses and diseases. By banning cigarettes, smokers argue that it is a rigorous violation of their human rights. However, there is no human right that allows humans to harm other humans. Obviously, smokers do not directly harm nonsmokers, but they indirectly affect nonsmokers’ health in the long term. In addition, smokers need to realize that non-smokers have rights too: a right to breathe in fresh air, a right to live without being endangered. In conclusion, using cigarettes is an issue that clearly needs to be addressed. Cigarette use should be banned because cigarette smoke is full of harmful substances, and those substances affect directly or indirectly to either smokers or nonsmokers. Likewise, the environment should be protected as well from harmful consequences of cigarette production may bring. The counter arguments which use governments’ profits and human rights are not satisfying in this case. In addition, if we do not prevent smoking, our children will grow up in a terrible environment in the future, where fresh air will be hardly found. Moreover, they may get more diseases or illnesses, and have a bad habit that their parents used to have and regretted.