Persuasive Essay Smoking Bans
Tobacco has been around for more than four hundred years and is still very popular as of today. Millions of Americans smoke cigarettes, cigars, and other tobacco products on a daily basis that are harmful to the body. However, smoking has become one of the biggest controversies in today's society. This personal experience clearly shows that smoking needs to be banned. “Gail Routh worked as a flight attendant for nearly twenty-seven years. Routh was a nonsmoker all her life, but after working in contact with secondhand smoke on airplanes she contracted lung cancer. Gail Routh sued the tobacco industry for lung cancer and bronchitis that was linked to the expose to secondhand smoke (Hudson, 2004).” In 1964, the United States Surgeon General declared that smoking was bad for one's health and was related to lung cancer. Therefore, smoking should be banned in all public places to prevent contracting lung cancer from first or second hand smoke, enable those with lung conditions to be able to hold jobs in places that they would not be able to because of the smoke in the air, and help businesses keep their employees safer while generating more revenue. This in turn would save thousands of lives each year.
Tobacco use kills nearly 470,000 Americans each year and is among one of the leading causes of preventable death. Smoking is also legal at the age eighteen in the United States; however, many non-smokers say that it should be restricted in public places such as restaurants, bars, and even workplaces. Firsthand and secondhand or “passive” smoke is detrimental to the health of the public and can cause serious health problems. According to Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights, “secondhand smoke is the third leading cause of preventable death in the United States.” “For every eight smokers that tobacco takes, they take one non-smokers life as well”, said regional director of the American Cancer Society (Smoking bans, 2001). Cigarette smoking also contributes to a number of diseases including heart disease, lung cancer, pneumonia, stroke, and asthma. These consequences are irreversible meaning they cannot be changing and they are with you for the rest of your life. Some of the health effects that have been associated with cancer include: cancer risk, circulatory impairment, slower rate of lung development, and vocal-cord damage (Ojeda, 2002).
Smoking bans may also have a positive effect on helping smokers reduce the amount of smoking because they are unable to smoke as much as they once used to and begin to lose their craving for tobacco. If the opportunity were not there, many would not go the extra yards to go someplace that they could smoke at. Since this, smokers would have less time to smoke and cause them to smoke less or possibly quit all together. Inside each cigar or cigarette is an addictive drug called nicotine. Nicotine is so addictive that only five percent of the smokers that try to quit successfully actually do quit, which is astonishing because the tobacco companies are corrupting our society to smoke because once they do they will not be able to stop.
Experts argue that smoking in public places restricts individuals with asthma and other lung conditions from being able to go out in public. The smoke that cigars and cigarettes produce affects the general public with such health problems. These individuals are unable to eat at restaurants and could not work in certain workplaces, which could end in discrimination lawsuits. It is a decision to smoke and the people who do so should have a responsibility to do where it would not affect any non-smoker's health. Protecting the health of those whom do not smoke is a more reasonable way to save lives because those whom do not smoke have better health overall than those who have been affect by smoking.
Some states all ready passed smoking bans to protect the health of the general public. In fact, more than six hundred state and local ordinances have restrictions or bans on smoking in public. California is one of the states that already have banned smoking in public places except at night clubs and have found that businesses have done more business since the ban was established than when businesses allowed smoking. For every smoker in the U.S. there are approximately three non-smokers, so of course non-smokers are going to go out to those smoke-free places because they do not have to worry about coming in contact with the secondhand that was once there. In addition, the health of consumers and employees' should not be affected so that the business could increase its revenue. According to Keeler (2003), “those who choose not to smoke should not be forced to experience the harmful (and potentially deadly) effects of smoking, simply by visiting work or attending a restaurant or bar.”
Have you ever walked into a bar or restaurant and seen the thick, grayish smoke floating in the air irritating your eyes? Have you ever felt your throat clogging as you breathe that thick, cloudy smoke? Well you just experienced secondhand smoke, which kills nearly 50,000 Americans annually (Smoak Jr., 1998). That secondhand smoke that fills the air contains at least 3800 chemicals, and fifty are known as cancer-causing substances (Galloway, 1988). With as many non-smokers as smokers were in that restaurant or bar, some could have possibly contracted a lung condition or even cancer from being exposed to that smoke.
Therefore, smoking bans should be established to prevent those who choose to be smoke-free from coming in contact with the secondhand smoke. The United States could be saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans annually if they take the necessary steps. The government seems to ignore the health of the general public until recently because they have found more medical links to cancer from smoking. This might seem like a great idea for all the non-smoker Americans that strongly dislike smoking.
However, while some Americans are for the smoking bans, others are very unhappy about them. One group against these smoking bans is the tobacco industry. The tobacco industry continues to deny any allegations that smoking has the slightest relation to health issues. The tobacco industry also fears that the public will become too educated on the risks of smoking and the damaging effects it has on human beings and would consequently reduce the industry's revenue by a significant margin. Also if such bans were imposed on the public the tobacco industry would be almost out of
Smokers are feeling that these bans are infringing their personal rights to smoke. “Smokers all across the nation say that smoking bans infringe their rights”(Smoking bans, 2001). They say smoking is perfectly legal and government officials have no right to tell them where and when they are able to smoke. It is a personal choice that should not be controlled by the government. Also non-smokers do not want to receive the “passive” smoke they should go to a smoke-free section. However, since there are more non-smokers in the United States, the smokers that are penalizing the general public should be punished. Not the non-smokers. Furthermore, it is not like the government would ban smoking everywhere, smokers could still light one up in their own car and home.
Smokers say if smoking is such a harmful activity and should be banned, and then there are many other activities that should also be banned due to the fact that they also would affect the general public. Some of these activities include riding a motorcycle, skydiving, eating fatty foods, and possibly working to hard are also harmful to the general public.
Another aspect of why smoking should not be banned in public places is the decreasing revenue of business. Opponents of these bans say that such bans could harm the revenue of local business. Americans are outraged that these only accommodate non-smokers. However, that is not true since in California it was not banned in nightclubs, so smokers could legally smoke there. Also instead of decreasing the revenue for businesses it increased quiet a bit, which proves this theory wrong.
During the history of the United States, there was time when alcohol was banned in all public places, prohibition. However, that failed because so many people still found places to go to consume the alcohol during that period of time. So if smoking were banned in all public places, some Americans still would not abide by the law and would still smoke. Therefore, full-smoking bans would not last because eventually the government would lift the bans.
Since tobacco has been around for such a long period of time, it would be a very unpopular for the bans to be placed. However, it is for the safety of the general public that do not want to be exposed to the secondhand smoke. These bans would benefit more Americans than it would harm. If 50,000 Americans die annually from secondhand smoke, the bans placed on smoking would essentially save the lives of almost all of them, boosting the consumers that would occupy those smoke-free buildings. Smoking is a preventable death, so why not take advantage of this and help save Americans lives. If those who choose to smoke should do it in private or outside away from the general public. This would also make the air cleaner and enable individuals that have a lung or breathing condition to get out and about without the worry of coming in contact with all the smoke that is filling the air of today. California is an example that the bans work because nearly seventy-three percent approved of the bans (Smoking bans, 2001). Also the ventilation systems in many buildings could possibly be upgraded to filter out the smoke making it just like the air outdoors, which seems to be much cleaner than the air that is found inside smoke filled bars and restaurants. So, smoking needs to be banned in all public places to insure than the health of all Americans is to be clear of any deadly toxins that could possibly harm the human body with cancer or other lung conditions.