In our current society, the free choice of smoking has gradually evolved into an alarming levels of addiction. Although smokers are warned on the dangers of smoking on the cigarette packs, they have repeatedly ignored this notion, and though avoidable, cigarette smoking has continued to cause deaths and disability across the world. Even smoking adherents have come to acknowledge that the bizarre act of smoking does not maintain or add value to life nor bring contentment to social, cultural, sexual, or spiritual needs, but only brings harm to the health of an individual.
Despite factors such as political, psychological, pharmacological, commercial, and sociological are said to influence smoking, it does not serve as a ground for this distasteful behavior that has led to passive smoking and the deaths, and health implications for non-smokers.
Smoking has created a heavy load on public health and health care system through morbidity, which has led to the rise in mortality rates. Since tobacco is not prohibited, this has left anti-smoking campaigners to only prescribe and instruct the public ”not to smoke” through creative adverts that show dazzling statistics on the prevalence of smoking and the ill-health and sometimes deaths that it has caused. The ill effects brought by smoking have motivated me to write this literature, since it has proved to be the biggest threat to current and future world health.
Thousands of people die every year due to smoking and many more die through passive means. Smoking has therefore led to adverse and extensive health effects through both passive and active means. Through passive means smoking has left non-smokers with sore eyes, coughs, sore throats, headaches, nausea, dizziness, and such effects can prove to be deplorable for people who are ill or have breathing difficulties, by increasing the asperity of asthma attacks (Slovic, 2001).
Active smoking can also cause various cancers and serious chest diseases such as emphysema and chronic bronchitis. Smokers are likely to die from lung cancer, although passive smoking can also be blamed when a non-smoker develops this disease. Smoking has been known to be a contributory factor in the development of pancreatic cancer and epidemiological studies show that it is a significant factor in the growth of oral cancer, while still being associated with the occurrence of cancerous tumors of the pancreas (Slovic, 2001).
Cigarette smoking by pregnant mothers has also been shown to affect the fetus by restricting intrauterine growth, reducing the number of fetal breathing movements, increasing intrapartum asphyxia risk, while also fewer accelerations of the fetal heart rate have been noticed. To add-on this, smoking also affects the birth weight, length and head circumference of the infant, this has therefore led to a large variation in infant birth weight and body length.
Parental smoking has on many occasions been linked with increased respiratory disorders in children, especially infants. Various studies have shown that passive smoking has taken a great toll on the lung function in children by having small decreases in pulmonary output function on both the large and small air passages when compared with the children of non-smokers. In children maternal smoking may lead to future health complications such as acute and chronic middle ear disease, childhood asthma, adulthood asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, antisocial behavior and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. In severe circumstances, smoking has led to an increase of pregnancy loss and infant deaths, this in turn has greatly reduced life expectancy (Owing, 2005).
There is also a direct cost of smoking in monetary terms through treatment, and an indirect cost through the loss of productivity. The monetary cost of smoking has forced important resources which could have been used for family and economic use to be directed towards treatment. Such occurrence has increased the levels of poverty dramatically, especially in a scenario where the victim is the breadwinner. During this time of treatment the victim undergoes a dormancy period which in turn affects the greater economy due to loss of production (Mason, 2009).
According to the Globe and Mail article, ”Smoking is good for my business”, by David Ginsburg, he claims that some other school of thought have argued that the cigarette related to smoking has helped raise and sustain the economy through revenues from tobacco tax, and has helped put food on the table for various individuals by creating jobs. Therefore, some quarters may have the opinion that tobacco and the cigarette associated with it, is really good for business as from this various events have gained tobacco sponsorship. Author Ginsburg greatly opposes this kind of thought and opinion because it does not value the basic concept of life itself, and he goes ahead to give an example.
He states, ”suppose 350 people were to die from a plane crash, various government agencies would be involved and every news channel would give it a serious coverage, while the plane company would be in serious trouble” (Ginsburg, 1997). This kind of concern is not given on the equal toll on human life that is lost as a result of cigarette sales, simply on the basis that these sales are good for the economy, tobacco sponsorships and jobs. The author also states that, ” the families and friends of victims who have died through smoking should not be consoled on the justification that died for the economic good of the society and sponsorship deal”.
In my view and conclusion, cigarette smoking is by any means not justified because it does not add any value to the human life, instead, it only leaves families and the greater society in distress. Tough measures should be put in place and adhered to, to protect non-smokers from being passive smokers. Smoking has continued to wipe out generations while still leaving a burden to the future. Although it may be claimed that tobacco creates jobs and brings in revenues to the economy, I rest my case by saying that, what good is the economy when everyone is ailing and dying.
References
Ginsburg, D. (1997). Smoking is good for My Business. Globe and Mail.
Mason, P. (2009). Know the Facts about Drinking and Smoking. The Rosen Publishing Group. New York, NY. Web.
Owing, J. H. (2005). Trends in Smoking and Health Research. Nova Publishers. New York, NY. Web.
Slovic, P. (2001). Smoking: Risk, perception & policy. SAGE. California. Web.