Exercise 7

Smoking should be made illegal in the world

Smoking has already been characterized as an unhealthy choice worldwide. There is growing research evidence that long-term smoking is responsible for death and illness. But what are the effects of smoking and whether it should be banned and made illegal is what we are trying to address here.

Reasons for banning smoking

Tobacco smoke contains harmful chemicals that are harmful to both smokers and non-smokers. Cigarettes contain over 7,000 chemicals and 250 of them are known to be harmful. This includes hydrogen cyanide, ammonia and carbon monoxide.  Breathing even a little tobacco can be harmful. From the 250 known ones around 69 are known to cause cancer.

There is substantial evidence that smoking leads to lung cancer, as it deposits the tobacco smoke in the respiratory tract (Office of the Surgeon General (US), 2004).

Smoking is bad for those non-smokers who are exposed to smoking. In the U.S yearly 300 lung cancer deaths occur among adult non-smokers due to secondhand exposure to smoking. Kids too are affected by the secondhand exposure putting them at a higher risk of SIDS, ear infection, pneumonia and bronchitis (National Cancer Institute, 2011).

In an unborn child whose mother is a smoker or a passive smoker, smoking has several bad effects on the baby’s health. The cigarette smoke can restrict the oxygen supply to the heart there by making it beat harder. Number of stillbirth is higher and also cot death in babies of smoking mothers is also high. Premature birth and low birth weight are also seen in mothers who smoke or exposed to secondhand smoking (NHS, 2015).

Other than the higher mortality rate found in smokers, smoking has several other health implications like heart diseases, stroke, asthma, hip fracture to name a few. Other lesser known effects are poor vision, anxiety, cold and flu, high cholesterol, stained teeth, diabetes complications and early menopause for women (Krucik, 2014).

Knowing the harmful effects of smoking no government should allow this activity in public. Smoking should be made illegal.