Smoking

By:  Caitlin Reynolds

There was a time when smoking was viewed as a common and completely acceptable habit that did no harm. Now, in the twenty-first century with all of our knowledge and prevention campaigns, there should not be 4500 people dying yearly from tobacco use. That's more than murder, alcohol, car accidents, and suicides combined and truly unacceptable. Smoking should not be considered a legal action, especially when it can eliminate a life.

No human being should ever die a preventable death. Smoking is a very addictive habit. Once you start, even if you want to stop due to financial or health reasons as most do, it is extremely hard. Bob Jones of Tampa, Florida realized this the hard way. His wife, Suzanne, started smoking at the age of twenty-two. He recalls the day a doctor diagnosed his wife with lung cancer just before Christmas '94. "I was really shocked at that," he says, taking deep breaths to control his voice. Suzanne was so addicted that even after she knew she had lung cancer, she could not stop smoking. She died eight months later.

This is no way to die, and yet 300 million of today's teenagers are in for the same fate…death due to smoking. Even if people do manage to stop smoking through gum, sprays and patches, there is great "potential to relapse and start smoking again at the end of the treatment period. The theory and the fact are soundly based and backed up by research," says a writer for The Evening Standard.

 The pain and suffering is not only inflicted on to the smoker, but also to those around them. Nobody should ever have to succumb to the detrimental and possibly fatal effects of second-hand smoke.

Second-hand smoke contains fifty cancer-causing agents. Children with parents who smoke suffer more from glue ear, ear infections, cot death, bronchitis, pneumonia, croup, and asthma attacks than their peers. This is truly unfair.

Sitting near to a smoking section in a restaurant can be a revolting experience. The smoke smells, it gets into your hair, and you can feel it seeping into and clogging your pores. To go through this every single day in your own home, knowing it can kill you, is horrible. What child deserves this

Smoking kills smokers as well as innocent people.  Unless something changes, there will be 100 million deaths in the next 20 years due to smoking. 100 million people will have their lives ended just like that, because they developed a bad habit, a habit that silently kills. Nothing that kills, including a habit that kills this amount of people, should ever be considered a legal choice in life. If 100 million lives are not proof enough to make this abundantly clear, what is?

 

Bibliography

Can second-hand smoke harm my family?" http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hppb/tobacco/infotobacco/e_labels/e_110.html, (Dec. 19 2000)

"Can tobacco use cause lung diseases other than cancer?" http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hppb/tobacco/infotobacco/e_label/e_114.html, (Dec. 19)

"Each year, the equivalent of a small city dies from tobacco use." http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hppb/tobacco/infotobacco/e_warnings/e_i.html, (Dec. 19 2000)

"Smoking still a big killer." The Evening Standard.  January 20^th, 1997 pg. 12

Sprott, Gary. "Husband said wife tried to kick habit." The Tampa Tribune. September 19, 2000: pg. 4

"You're not the only one smoking this cigarette. " http:///www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hppb/tobacco/e_warnings/e_p.html, (Dec. 19, 2000)