Argumentative Essay on Illegalizing Smoking

Jonathan Bayle

AP English

Ms. Hillman

1 December 2015

Argumentative Essay on Illegalizing Smoking

        The world is a dangerous place filled with many life threatening occurrences around every corner. And no matter how careful you are, there is always one particular action that has caused horrendous accounts of tragedies in the world: smoking cigarettes. Prominently seen in today’s society are people who take part of this dangerous act as they smoke cigarettes. Also most commonly seen are the ignored warnings that many people see that attempt to convince smokers to quit their unhealthy habit. The subject on the legal status of smoking cigarettes, especially in public, is significant due to the fact of the many unaware consequences that accompany the vile action of smoking, which is why the government should act upon this dilemma immediately. The legalization of smoking cigarettes should be banned from the United States, especially in public areas because it contributes to health problems to both the smoker and others through second hand smoke, and to harmful effects in the environment.

        One of the biggest concerns when discussing the subject of the consequences in smoking is the health problems that develop in the smoker. Like a broken record, this warning about smoking has been constantly been repeated to warn smokers and has had little success to changer their unhealthy habits, but many of them are unaware of the cold hard facts that emphasizes this scary reality. Cigarettes contain tobacco which is one of the leading causes of death and according to the American Cancer Society, about 1 in 5 people (about 480,000) in the US die from the tobacco they smoke. If this doesn’t open the eyes of smokers then what will? The ingredient, tobacco in cigarettes is a harmful chemical that invades a person’s immune system which can explain why health problems and even death occur as people continue to smoke. And shocking it may be, if the amount of people smoking increases, then the statistic of the amount of deaths caused by tobacco will increase as well. In addition to this, the UK Cancer Research team has conducted findings that smoking can also increase the rick for many dangerous cancers such as in the lungs, esophagus, stomach, and much more. Due to a cigarette’s mixture of over four thousand different chemicals, smoking therefore can develop these cancerous diseases in important organs of your body. This again shows that not only death add on to the health problems that smoking causes, but also the cancers that badly affect one’s health. Finally to top things off, less deadly but as important as the other two consequences, medical doctor Melissa Conrad Stoppler states that smoking cigarettes can also cause permanent damage to one’s physical appearance. This shows to prove that physical catastrophes such as damaged gums/teeth, stained nails and fingers, excessive hair loss, and development of earl wrinkles are all serious side effects that warn the user for greater health problems.

        Another big issue in smoking cigarettes in public is not only the harmful effects is has on the smoker, but also the bad effects it causes on others through second hand smoke. Everyday as people pass by smokers they get threatened by the dangerous chemicals filled within the smoke, which shows how many people who never pick up a cigarette in their life end up getting affected. To back this up, the US Environmental Protection Agency (UEPA) has classified second hand smoking as a carcinogen (cancer causing agent) mainly in lung cancer; they have also noted that about 7,300 non-smokers die each year due to lung cancer. Adults who maintain a healthy lifestyle but are constantly exposed to these chemicals will eventually develop lung cancer as a serious health problem. Even infants who have no control and are exposed to smoke can develop lung cancer at an early age with many health issues down the road for them. Other than the risk of cancer, second hand smoke has been also proven to cause other serious diseases such as in non-smokers’ heart and blood vessels, according to the American Cancer Society. These diseases would often increase a person’s chance of getting a stroke or even a heart attack, both being very life threatening health problems caused even when people never pick up a cigarette. The American Cancer Society has also found evidence of the great deal of health damage it affects in infants and children. “In their cases,” they state “lung infections, wheezing and shortness of breath, and asthma attacks are one of the main health problems they face.” Without proper knowledge or protection from the chemicals of smoking, infants and young children may be in more risk of receiving these health issues and may even result later in developing major diseases such as cancer.

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