Persuasive essay smoking bans free sample
persuasive essay smoking bans
In Italy, several Popes pronounced against the use of tobacco in Church on pain of excommunication, and in Turkey, where the smoking habit had become fashionable, the Muftis opposed it because they considered it to be contrary to the teachings of the Koran. The punishment used seems to have been rather severe; those caught smoking were dragged through the streets with the stems of their pipes pierced through the nose. Even more sadistic was Sultan Muhrad IV, who introduced the death penalty for smoking, and is reported himself to have gone out at night to catch smokers in the act. The Russians, as might have been expected, were equally cruel in the punishment they imposed on all those who violated the ban which had been proclaimed by Tsar Michael against smoking.
anti smoking essay
Some physicians even go further than that. They claim that to publish critical surveys of the evidence (like the present one) is in fact irresponsible because it lowers the belief of readers in the general conclusion which they support, namely that smoking causes cancer, and may therefore lead some people into deciding that giving up smoking may not be as necessary as they had thought on reading the medical reports. On this view what is needed is a large scale propaganda campaign to bring home to every man, woman and child the dangers involved in smoking, and all voices that would speak out against this view are therefore doing a disservice to society.
research paper on smoking habit
However, dull people whose views were in accordance with the aims of the film and who saw the one that presented both sides were actually moved away from the desired conclusion into believing that the war would last longer than they thought to begin with ! Intelligent people generally reacted poorly to the film that gave only one side, and for those who had originally believed that the war would soon be over the effect was actually in the opposite direction; the one-sidedness of the film presumably made them suspicious! In other words, there are great complexities in this field and the idea that simply publishing medical reports or brief newspaper articles about these reports would have very much of an effect on the smoking habits of people is not a tenable one.
essays against smoking
On the basis of his analysis of the existing evidence, Eysenck acknowledges a statistical association between smoking and disease. He strenuously objects, however, to the simplistic interpretation of this association as demonstrating that smoking causes lung cancer and coronary heart disease: Even if we were to take the correlation between smoking and lung cancer seriously as proof of causal connections, we would still have to conclude that smoking was neither a necessary nor a sufficient cause. Roughly speaking, only one heavy smoker in ten dies of lung cancer: thus smoking is not a sufficient cause. One person in ten of those who die of lung cancer is a non-smoker; thus smoking is not a necessary cause
effects essay smoking
Errors in research design and the statistical analyses of the epidemiological studies on which the 'environmental hypothesis' that 'smoking causes lung cancer' is based were first enumerated by Eysenck in his 1965 book, Smoking, Health and Personality. A comprehensive and detailed explication of Eysenck's current views on smoking and health is presented in his recent book, The Causes and Effects of Smoking (Eysenck, 1980). In this volume he reviews the criticism previously raised by distinguished statisticians, such as the late Sir Ronald Fisher (1958, 1959) and other leading authorities (Berkson, 1958, 1960, 1962; Berkson and Elveback, 1960; Katz, 1969; Mainland and Herrera, 1956; Reid, 1975; Sterling, 1973), and notes the inconclusive and contradictory nature of much of the evidence that is cited in support of the environmental hypothesis.
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In his recent book Eysenck also reviews and evaluates the evidence for 'genetic theories', which attribute both the development of a disease and the maintenance of the smoking habit to genetic or constitutional differences. The genetic theory developed by Professor P.R.J. Burch is considered most promising, and extensive reference is made to Burch's theoretical arguments and his research findings (1974, 1976, 1978a, 1978b, 1978c). In addition, Eysenck reports new evidence of the heritability of smoking and disease based on extensive studies of large samples of twins, adopted children, and their families, on which he has collaborated with Dr Lindon J. Eaves, a professional geneticist.
thesis about smoking
A major argument in support of the hypothesis that smoking causes lung cancer is based on statistical findings that smokers of a given age and sex die more frequently of a particular disease than do non-smokers. Eysenck describes a US study of nearly 5000 persons in which the 'mortality ratio' of observed to expected deaths due to lung cancer was 10.8, indicating that more than ten times as many smokers died of this disease than would have been expected if none had smoked. But the mortality ratios of smokers to non-smokers for Parkinson's disease, diabetes and alcohol consumption are consistently less than 1.0. Eysenck concludes that it may be equally as wrong to interpret positive ratios as indicating a causal effect as it would be to interpret negative ratios as evidence that smoking inhibits the development of a particular disease.
research paper on smoking ban
If there is a causal relation between cigarette smoking and lung cancer, heavy smokers should develop cancer more often, and at an earlier age, than light smokers. Citing the research of Passey, who examined the smoking histories of a large group of men with lung cancer, Eysenck observes that the amount smoked is unrelated to the age at which cancer was initially diagnosed. Moreover, light smokers were afflicted with lung cancer at about the same age as heavy smokers. Since no relation was found between the age of onset of lung cancer and either the amount smoked or the age at which smoking began, there appears to be little evidence of a causal 'dose-response' relationship between cigarette smoking and lung cancer.
essay on smoking bans
Another form of 'large-scale epidemiological study' of great value is that of the randomized controlled intervention trial. In a typical design, smokers satisfying certain admission criteria, for example, of age, sex and freedom from certain diseases, are then allocated randomly (a) to the special intervention group and (b) to the usual or normal care group that acts as a control. The special intervention group is subjected to intense pressure, controlled by the investigator, to quit smoking, while the control group forms part of the general population insofar as exposure to anti-smoking propaganda is concerned. Smoking habits of both groups are monitored and the levels of smoking-associated diseases in the two groups are compared after a suitable interval.
essay on teen smoking
In deeds and words designed to further advance' his protecting and raising children agenda, Clinton's State of the Union address in 1996 also included pleas for tobacco companies to stop aiming advertising at children and for the nation to make a concerted effort to drastically lower the teen pregnancy level, two causes he had championed in the 1994 State of the Union ( Clinton 1996h; DeParle 1994). In selected interviews, such as one with MTV's Tabitha Soren on August 11, 1995, Clinton reinforced his aversion to tobacco advertising, devoting his longest responses to this particular issue ( Clinton 1995b).