Ryan Kelly Noah Pearlstone ENC 1101 5 November 2013 A Ban On Cigarettes

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The governments job in society is to look after the nation when it sees a flaw in the system and to make decisions that improve and do not destroy it. Although the government has already made many laws in order to improve the standard of living today, there are still many things that the government needs to eradicate in order to perfect the nation. Smoking cigarettes can be relaxing and fun, but the plethora of problems and concerns it creates out-weighs any beneficial argument supporting smoking. Someone might argue that taking away cigarettes is unconstitutional because it is their right to smoke if they want to, but because of its incredibly harmful and damaging effect, the government has the rights to govern its people. The government should make the sale, distribution and smoking of cigarettes illegal in order to care for the future generations health and safety. The government should illegalize the presence of cigarettes because of its horrible effect on the human body. Cigarette smoking has been proven to increase the risk of cancer on the bodys internal and external organs regardless of how long you have been smoking (The Health Consequences of Smoking). The U.S. department of health and human resources published an article called, The Health Consequences of Smoking in 1982 that states, There is no safe cigarette and no safe level of consumption. Someone might object to this statement by saying that a few

Kelly 2 cigarettes would not be harmful, however, with having no safe limit, every cigarette smoked could cause significant damage to the smoker. Smoking cigarettes not only harms the smokers but also has the potential to negatively affect the people around them. Every cigarette that is burned causes a second hand smoke affect on the community around them. Many smokers argue that specific smoking zones make smoking not harmful to nonsmokers; nevertheless, smokers frequently break free of the zones and smoke where they want. A man named berg Mattias who has a PhD and works with The Institute of Environmental Medicine discusses the harmful effects of second hand smoke by stating that second hand smoke increases the risk of cancers, diseases and health defects on the children in homes or people on the streets. Mattias analyzed 192 countries in his study called, Worldwide burden of disease from exposure to second-hand smoke. The calculations were based on disease-specific relative risk estimates and area-specific estimates of the proportion of people exposed to second-hand smoke. According to the study by Mattias, [Second hand smoke] exposure was estimated to have caused 379,000 deaths from ischemic heart disease, 165,000 from lower respiratory infections, 36,900 from asthma, and 21,400 from lung cancer in 2004; which was 1.0% of worldwide mortality (139-146). The government should be getting rid of cigarettes; It is a quiet killer, and someone who does not use cigarettes would never suspect to die from a smoking related illness.

Kelly 3 Our government should be putting a stop to the continuation of cigarette smoking to prevent not just deaths but health risks. Second hand smoke kills so many people every year, and hurts even more (Mattias). Mattias explains that, Exposure to second-hand smoke amounted to 10.9 million diagnosed diseases, which was about 0.7% of total worldwide diseases in 2004(Mattias, 139-146). Therefore banning cigarettes would save the lives of Americans who are falling victim to second hand smoke diseases. Someone might argue that somebody that is around the smoke knows that they are in danger of second hand smoke and therefore are knowledgeable of the risks. Although this may be true, the governments job is to protect us regardless if we know our risky circumstances. For example, seatbelt laws were made to save lives even though the driver of a car knows the risk of not wearing a seatbelt. The government has no right to be spending our billions of dollars managing this countrys health care system and not take these health risks seriously. Illegalizing cigarettes would help the government spend less on health care, as well as save lives and promote good health to future generations. There are many problems besides health care that would be fixed if the government supported a ban on cigarettes in the United States. A good example is the fires that are started from cigarette butts or lighter misuse. Many deaths or injuries occur because of these fires and they can occur when cigarette smokers throw their burnt butts to the ground without putting them out, or toss the buds out

Kelly 4 the windows of their cars. Smokers could argue the point that they always make sure their cigarettes are burnt out before throwing away, but truth of the matter is that people will continue to litter their trash or cigarette butts whenever they want even if they are not burnt out. Many of the fires are started because of the easy access children have to lighters or matches. The government and American people should be worried about these statistics because fires have immense health, social and environmental costs. A study called "Fire injuries, disasters, and costs from cigarettes and cigarette lights: a global overview" was done by the University of Californias Department of Preventive Medicine in 2000 by analyzing the number of fires from cigarettes directly and the number of fires caused by children that had access to lighters and matches from parents that smoke. The results were that smoking was the leading cause of residential or total fire death of all eight countries in the study. Other results stated that, Cigarette lights cause an estimated 100,000 U.S. and one million global, child-playing fires per yearsmoking causes an estimated 30% of U.S. and 10% of global fire death burdens smoking's estimated U.S. and global fire costs were $22.8 and $89.2 billion (Department of Preventive Medicine). Someone could argue that they keep their lighter hidden and out of reach from the children, but the chance that they will always remember to hide the lighters is scarce. The government should be searching for easy, cost effective ways to protect its people and its property. Banning cigarettes would save lives, save the government the time it takes to put out fires, the money it takes to pay workers, and the resources needed to create new buildings.

Kelly 5 To make the ban of cigarettes effective, the government needs to focus on preventing minors from obtaining them. Pediatrician and former commissioner, David A. Kessler, from the U.S. Food Drug Administration Office wrote an article called, Nicotine Addiction: A Pediatric Disease and stated that, adolescents are the gateway through which tobacco addiction enters the population. If the government can stop the distribution of cigarettes to underage adolescents, it would stop the cycle of addiction. Another study was done by the American Journal of Pubic Health, which stated, In 1991, approximately 2.7 million teenage cigarette smokers consumed an average of 28.3 million cigarettes per day (516 million packs per year). An estimated 255 million packs of cigarettes were sold illegally to minors in 1991 (300-302). This study supports the claim that many cigarettes are illegally sold to minors and that the government is not doing enough regulating to prevent the cigarettes from reaching the minors. By preventing the addiction of cigarettes from reaching the future generations, the increase in their public health will result. All in all, the government has the right and should terminate the use of cigarettes in the United States because it would benefit the citizens of the nation. By getting rid of the addictive, cancerous causing cigarettes, there would be a reform of public health, reduction in number disasters caused by fires, and increase in the number of saved lives of the victims of second hand smoke. Many people argue that smokers can be responsible to smoke in designated areas and keep lighters away from children, but the likelihood of that happening efficiently is scarce. People will argue that having nicotine addictions should exempt them from this law, but I

Kelly 6 believe that the full beneficial effect of the law will not be observed if it is not made illegal for everyone. The government needs to begin by preventing those that are underage from acquiring cigarettes because the addiction starts as adolescence. Protect the country and support the ban of cigarettes to save your childrens generation from the harmful addiction of cigarette smoking.

WORK CITED PAGE Sources: 1. Cummings, K. M., T. Pechacek, and D. Shopland. "The Illegal Sale of Cigarettes to US Minors: Estimates by State." American Journal of Public Health 84.2 (1994): 300-02. Web. 2. General, US Surgeon. "The health consequences of smoking." Chronic obstructive lung disease. US Department of Health and Human Resources. Publ 84-50205 (1982). 3. berg, Mattias, et al. "Worldwide burden of disease from exposure to second-hand smoke: a retrospective analysis of data from 192 countries." The Lancet 377.9760 (2011): 139-146. 4. Leistikow, Bruce N., Daniel C. Martin, and Christina E. Milano. "Fire injuries, disasters, and costs from cigarettes and cigarette lights: a global overview." Preventive medicine 31.2 (2000): 91-99. 5. Kessler, David A., et al. "Nicotine addiction: a pediatric disease." The Journal of pediatrics 130.4 (1997): 518-524.

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