Argument

Smoking

     Stess. We all have it in our every-day lives, adults especially. We have a job to do, a boss to please, a family to take care of, and a large stack of bills to pay. Add all these together and you get one big mountain of stress. Some people handle stress much better than others. Some channel their stress into an activity like working out, baking, or playing with their kids. Others do not feel the effects of stress at all. Sadly, a lot of people do not deal well with stress. Many people turn to drinking or smoking cigarettes as a way to handle the stress in their lives. Although stress is one of the main reasons why people start smoking, it is not the only one. People start smoking to help to help deal with stress, deal with depression or other mental illness, or because people around them smoke. These are just a few reasons, there are many others. Smoking is dangerous for everybody. It harms not only the smoker, but also the people around him/her. It can cause many health problems. Smoking should be illegal because not only does it harm the smoker, it harms the people around him and will harm the generations to come.

     When someone smokes, he harms his body more and more with each drag. Smoking harms the body in numerous ways. Some health consequences of tobacco use include cardiovascular disease, multiple types of cancer, pulmonary disease, adverse reproductive outcomes, and the exacerbation of chronic health conditions (McAfee 81). According to the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, tobacco use remains the leading cause of preventable morbidity and mortality in the United States. The key word here is preventable. If people were not allowed to smoke, they might not have died from smoking-related diseases. The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report also states that smoking causes approximately 443,000 premature deaths each year. If smoking was illegal, those 443,000 lives would have been spared, and their families would not have experienced the loss of a loved one.

     Smoking does not only hurt the smoker, it hurts all the people around him. Second hand smoke can cause lung cancer in a person who has never smoked a cigarette in his/ her entire life. How can this be acceptable? Why can this continue to happen and there are no consequences? Also, if a pregnant woman smokes, it can have devastating effects on her baby. Babies can be born with disorders that keep them from living a normal life because their mothers smoked. Why is this not considered to be wrong? Shouldn't there be a law that keeps this from happening and gives every baby a normal chance at life? This is just another reason why smoking should be illegal.

     Not only does smoking hurt the smoker and the people around him, it also hurts our economy. According to the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, smoking has been estimated to cost the United States approximately 96 billion dollars in direct medical expenses and 97 billion dollars in lost productivity each year. That right there is one hundred and ninety three BILLION dollars! If it was illegal to smoke and the United States saved all that money, maybe out economy wouldn't be the way that it is right now.

     Another reason why smoking should be illegal is because children and young adults might decide to start smoking if they see a parent of friend smoking. Previous studies suggest that parental smoking may be related to initiation of smoking habits in adolescents (Mak, Sain- Yin Hu, etc. 1057). Also, according to the Nicotine and Tobacco Research, a previous study in Germany has shown that children who grew up in a household with smokers were more likely to smoke than those who grew up in a household with non-smokers. These studies proved that children follow in their parents' footsteps. Maybe if the parents were not allowed to smoke in the first place, the children would not start smoking either.

     These are just a few reasons why smoking should be illegal. People get hurt every day because of smoking. It hurts the smoker, it hurts the people around him, and it can influence children to start smoking, which will hurt them too. If smoking was made to be illegal, thousands of lives could be saved. Why are all of these deaths not a considered a problem? Why are people allowed to continue hurting themselves and other people? Smoking needs to be made illegal to keep these deaths from occurring and to keep children from taking up the deadly habit.

Timothy McAfee, et al. "Vital Signs: Current Cigarette Smoking Among Adults     

    Aged ≥18 Years With Mental Illness -- United States, 2009-2011."MMWR:

    Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report62.5 (2013): 81-87.Consumer Health 

    Complete - EBSCOhost. Web. 22 Oct. 2013.

                       

Mak, Kwok-Kei, Sai-Yin Ho, and Jeffrey R. Day. "Smoking Of Parents And Best

    Friend—Independent And Combined Effects On Adolescent Smoking And

    Intention To Initiate And Quit Smoking."Nicotine & Tobacco Research14.9

    (2012): 1057-1064.Consumer Health Complete - EBSCOhost. Web. 22 Oct.

    2013