Smoking is one of the most preventable causatives of death in the world since smoking is just an acquired behavior that many people have the authority to avoid. Smoking is either directly or indirectly responsible for causing the death of one out of five people who die in the United States of America.
According to the centers for disease control and prevention, approximately 43.5 million adults in the USA were active smokers (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 1227). Most of the current smokers are chronic cigarette smokers. Out of every ten smokers, six of them go to the extent of smoking in public places. Public smoking is a vice that has numerous adverse effects on society.
As a result, society should condemn and facilitate the prohibition of public smoking in any part of the country. The essentiality of this paper is to explore the effects of public smoking and provide arguments that will lead to the prohibition of public smoking.
Public smoking causes many health complications both to active and passive smokers. The health effects of smoking range from mild effects of mouth smell to chronic illnesses that finally cause death. Numerous research carried out to access the effect of cigarette smoking on the public provides that cigarette smoking causes cancer. The result revealed that cigarette smoking causes at least 31% of all deaths arising from cancer (Jha 350).
It is evident from the statistic that cigarette smoking is one of the most causative agents of cancer among the citizens in the USA. To both active and passive smokers, smoking increases the potentiality of one being diagnosed with other forms of cancer.
For example, cigarette smoking increases the risk of acquiring lungs, larynx, throat, esophagus, sinuses, mouth, tongue, and lips cancer. Cigarette smoking contributes to about 87% of deaths arising from lung cancer.
Public smoking is also responsible for numerous cardiovascular diseases. Smoking in public places exposes a large number of people to harmful substances released from a cigarette. For instance, smoking causes coronary heart disease both to active and passive smokers. In the end, smoking causes the occurrences of stroke among individuals.
Smoking contributes to a reduced blood circulation among people who smoke by narrowing arteries that transport blood in the body. It leads to insufficient oxygen circulation into the brains of active and passive smokers. In the end, victims of the effects of smoking often die from stroke.
Stroke causes a majority of deaths in the United States of America. Public smoking increases the risk of occurrence of respiratory diseases such as bronchitis, emphysema, and chronic airway obstruction to both active and passive smokers (Peate 361).
In addition, research also provides that public smoking has more adverse effects on women. For instance, a harmful substance released from active smokers can contribute to damaging the reproductive health of women. Smoking contributes to numerous birth defects, both directly and indirectly (Mokdad, Marks, Stroup, and Gerberding 1245).
The society continues to witness many reported cases of reduced fertility, miscarriages, premature births, stillbirths, and low birth weights in infants that relate to women who are either active smokers or who are exposed to an environment with people who smoke publicly (Peate 366).
Research proves that cigarette smoking causes three out of every five birth defects in newborn babies (Mokdad, Marks, Stroup, and Gerberding 1245). The research also provides that smoking either directly or indirectly contributes to sudden infant death syndrome that kills many infants in the USA.
Finally, Public smoking is also an environmental hazard since it involves the release of harmful gases into the atmosphere. The release of such harmful gases from a burning cigarette has adverse effects on the atmosphere. For instance, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide realized from burning cigarettes increases such gases to critical levels that promote global warming.
As global warming increases, the world continuously becomes inhabitable. There are also many cases of many huge explosions that kill many people due to the negligence of public smokers.
For instance, smokers who go ahead and start smoking in petrol filling stations often cause huge explosions since they accidentally ignite the highly flammable petrol to cause huge explosions killing a large number of people. Such accidents often result in the death of many people.
Conclusion
The paper clearly illustrates and expounds on the effects of smoking to the public. For instance, it is a fact that cigarette smoking causes the death of approximately 443,000 American citizens annually (USA Department of Health and Human Services 376).
Smoking kills both passive and active smokers. Most of the victims die from illnesses that closely related to smoking. It is evident that statistical smoking is slowly becoming a huge pandemic in the USA. Public smoking is a vice that has numerous adverse effects on society.
As a result, society should condemn and facilitate the prohibition of public smoking in any part of the country. It is appropriate that the society should take necessary measures to mitigate the potential pandemic before it accelerates to unmanageable levels.
Work Cited
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Smoking as attributable to mortality, years of potential life lost, and productivity losses in United States.” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 5.45 (2008): 1226-1228. Print.
Jha, Peter. “The 21st Century hazard of smoking and benefits of its cessation in the United States of America.” New England Journal of Medicine 368.1 (2013): 343-350. Print.
Mokdad, Amnon, Marks John, Stroup Dan, and Gerberding Jones. “The Actual Causes of Death in United States of America.” Journal of the American Medical Association 291.10 (2004): 1238-1245. Print.
Peate, Ian. “Effects of smoking on reproductive health of men.” British journal of nursing 14.7 (2005): 363-366. Print.
USA Department of Health and Human Services. How tobacco smoking causes diseases: Biology and Behavioral Basis for Smoking-Attributable Disease, Atlanta: USA Department of Health and Human Services, 2010, Print.