Should Smoking be Banned?
Cigarettes are made from dried tobacco leaves and flavoring to make it taste better, but there are also many other harmful substances added that can do a lot of damage to your body and the environment. There are over two hundred and fifty harmful chemicals just in tobacco and sixty-nine of the chemicals are known to cause cancer. The amount of people that smoke has gone down over the years because we have learned the effects of smoking on the body. Most people that smoke are between the ages of twenty-five to sixty-four. This means that the new generations are not smoking as much due to the effects of cigarettes. Even though the amount of people that smoke has gone down, it is still a problem today. It has too many horrible effects that hurts everyone. Smoking needs to come to an end because of all the negative effects that can be very harmful to not only the smoker, but also everyone around them, however many people may lose their jobs in the tobacco industry due to people not smoking.
When someone becomes a smoker, their habits and attitudes change. Most people that smoke start before the age of twenty years old. People smoke due to stress, life problems, peer pressure, social acceptance, family history, lower educational attainment, and lower economic status (Haddad & Malakeh, p. 2). If people smoke or if they do not smoke also depends on their parents attitude toward smoking (Smoking and Mental Health). If parents do not approve of smoking, the child has a smaller chance of becoming a smoker, but if the parents approve of smoking and are smokers, there is a greater chance that the child will join in. The majority of smokers do not find that smoking causes illnesses. They only think that people who smoke more than they do will end up receiving the illnesses (Haddad & Malakeh, p. 2). But, people that smoke less than twenty cigarettes per day can die from smoking. There is over 480,000 deaths per year from smoking. Also, someone that smokes as much as one cigarette per day or only a few per week can have lung problems. When someone smokes, their behavior changes. They could start to push away their family, friends, and co-workers. This will cause a lot of stress not only for the smoker, but also the family. When someone is smoking, the nicotine from the cigarette will reach the brain within ten seconds (Smoking and Mental Health). The nicotine actually improves the mood of the person at first. They also have better concentration. Eventually, when one has regular doses each day, it can lead to changes in the brain (Smoking and Mental Health). This could then lead to withdrawal (Smoking and Mental Health). If someone is experiencing withdrawal, they will definitely have mood swings due to the nicotine. If someone is stressed out, it could cause them to smoke more than they usually do. If someone is trying to stop smoking, they might become very angry because of the lack of nicotine in their system.
Smoking has a huge factor on exercise and fitness. Being physically active is going to help people long-term. If people are more active, they have a higher percentage of living longer and being healthier. Most people that smoke exercise less than the average person, which then makes them less physically fit (Conway & Cronan, p. 3). In a study, it showed that people that have never smoked or stopped smoking work out for longer periods of time (Conway & Cronan, p. 3). But, if a current smoker was given a set time to workout, they would not be able to workout for the whole time. So, they would burn fewer calories per week than a regular person working out. An average person could run mile and a half faster than a current smoker would be able to. A current smoker would run a mile and a half at least thirty seconds slower. (Conway & Cronan, p. 5). When someone is able to exercise more and for longer periods of time, they have a lower body fat than other people (Conway & Cronan, p. 4). There is an average that smokers exercise about two times less per week than a regular person, and exercise about two minutes less as well (Conway & Cronan, p. 4). People that are considered heavier, are more likely to quit smoking, rather than people that are thinner (Conway & Cronan, p. 8). This is because it is harder on the person’s body, who is heavier, to workout and move (Conway & Cronan, p. 9). Once a heavier person quits smoking, their body mass will significantly decrease. They will be able to exercise more and not be in as much pain. With smoking and exercising, it could cause pain in one’s chest. Depending on how much a person smokes, is how much pain one will endure. If someone smokes a lot, they might not be able to engage in little to no physical activity. Once a person starts having a regular workout schedule, they are more likely to quit smoking due to becoming more fit and wanting to workout more without being in pain (Conway & Cronan, p. 11).
Smoking does not only damage our body, but it also damages the environment. The lung is the primary organ that is effected by cigarette smoking. As the smoke enters the body and travels to the lungs, there are chemicals released. One can receive lung disease from this. A lung disease that could occur are Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), which is a broader term for emphysema, refractory asthma, and chronic bronchitis (Health Effects of Cigarette Smoking). Someone that has COPD from smoking is twelve to thirteen more times likely to die from this disease than nonsmokers (Health Effects of Cigarette Smoking). Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease makes it harder for one to breathe, coughing, production of mucus, and wheezing (What Is COPD?: Signs and Symptoms). Emphysema is occurred when there is damage to the air sacs in the lungs. The walls of the air sacs disappear creating larger sacs in the lungs (What Is COPD?: Signs and Symptoms). The sacs then do not absorb the oxygen as well which then causes less oxygen to be absorbed into the blood (What Is COPD?: Signs and Symptoms). Also, the lungs become stretched out, which causes air to be trapped in the lungs. This will make it harder to breather and cause a feeling of shortness of breathe. Refractory asthma is when the airways close up during an asthma attack (What Is COPD?: Signs and Symptoms). Usually, people can take medicine to reopen the airways, so they can breathe again. But, refractory means non-reversible, which means that asthma medicine can not reverse the asthma attack and the airways tighten (What Is COPD?: Signs and Symptoms). Chronic Bronchitis is when there is damage to the bronchial tubes. The tubes become swollen and they feel irritated, which results in coughing and shortness of breathe (What Is COPD?: Signs and Symptoms). Mucus can come up in the coughing and if this would happen for two years in a row, then it would be considered chronic bronchitis (What Is COPD?: Signs and Symptoms). There are hair-like fibers in your bronchial tubes called cilia. Cilia helps move the mucus up the bronchial tubes, so it can be coughed out. If someone smokes just a little bit, the cilia can become damaged. Once the cilia is all gone it becomes hard to cough up the mucus (What Is COPD?: Signs and Symptoms). This causes more coughing and then the tubes become irritated which creates more mucus. Mucus will then build up in the lungs and cause even more damages. Someone with COPD has a greater risk of obtaining heart disease, lung cancer, and many other conditions (What Is COPD?: Signs and Symptoms).
Smoking cigarettes causes cancer mainly anywhere in the body (Health Effects of Cigarette Smoking). Someone who smokes can get cancer in their bladder, blood, cervix, colon, rectum, esophagus, kidney, ureter, larynx, liver, oropharynx (throat, tongue, soft palate, and tonsils), pancreas, stomach, trachea, bronchus, and lung (Health Effects of Cigarette Smoking). If smoking was banned, every one of three cancer deaths would not happen in the United States (Health Effects of Cigarette Smoking). Smoking is very harmful to a woman that is pregnant. If a woman is pregnant and is smoking, it could cause the baby to have a low birthweight, premature delivery, or fetal death (Zhu, Shu-Hong, & Valbo). The graph shows that more than half of the women that smoke during pregnancy cause damage to their babies before they are even born. Ten percent of all babies that are effected by smoke in the womb die. Even though women know the risks of smoking during pregnancy, about thirty percent of women quit smoke while they are pregnant (Zhu, Shu-Hong, & Valbo). Women will continue to smoke because of having a negative attitude toward smoking, when there are other smokers in the house, heavy smokers have a hard time stopping, lower education, and not being married (Zhu, Shu-Hong, & Valbo). When a pregnant women smokes, it could also harm the child later in life. It could slow down the child’s mental development (Zhu, Shu-Hong, & Valbo). They may learn things slower or just not understand certain subjects (Zhu, Shu-Hong, & Valbo).
Tobacco products are very destructive to the environment. There are over two hundred and seventy cigarettes smoked each year in the United States (Tobacco and the Environment). About thirty-eight percent of all liter is cigarettes, and they leave toxic chemicals in the environment, water, and air (Tobacco and the Environment). In 2016, a bout twenty-four percent of the debris collected from the oceans were remains of cigarettes (Tobacco and the Environment). The toxins are getting into the oceans, and are harming the sea creatures. If one cigarette butt released its toxins in saltwater or freshwater with fish, fifty percent of the fish would die within ninety-six hours (Tobacco and the Environment). This is then causing less food for the other sea animals that eat the fish. Even the wildlife are being effected from the toxins. The toxins are sinking into the soil which could then be absorbed into the food they eat (Tobacco and the Environment). Most of the toxic chemicals that are released into the air are from the factories that produce the cigarettes (Tobacco and the Environment). Some of the chemicals that are released into the air have to be monitored by the Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxic Release Inventory database because that are very dangerous to our health and to the environment (Tobacco and the Environment).
Second-hand smoke is the third most cause of death in the world (Panagiotakos, Demosthenes, et.al.). The more that nonsmokers are exposed to second-hand smoke, the more of the same effects they will have that smokers have. Being exposed to second-hand smoke can reduce the amount of oxygen that one can take in (Panagiotakos, Demosthenes, et.al.). This will then make it hard to workout and have a high physical activity rate (Panagiotakos, Demosthenes, et.al.). The nonsmokers that are exposed to second-hand smoke can still have many problems with their lungs. They can develop the same diseases that regular smokers do. A smoker is not only hurting themselves when they smoke, but also their family and friends around them.
The downfall to people smoking, is that many people will lose their jobs working at tobacco companies. There are over one hundred million people that work for tobacco companies right now, and that is a lot of new jobs to find (Dcomm). About 1.2 million work in the manufacturing of tobacco, forty million people work on growing the tobacco and the leaf processing, and twenty million people work in home industries (Dcomm). The tobacco industry is slowly trying to find new jobs for their employees because they can not have so many employees anymore. But, it is a hard process because of the lack of jobs available and the types of jobs that the employees can do with their degrees and ability. With this many people being unemployed, it will cause a lot of issues for the economy. A lot of family’s income source may only be from the tobacco industry. Some families could lose everything from this. The government is going to need to help find new jobs for the people in order for everything to transition smoothly.