Kyra Black
There are 7,000 chemicals in a cigarette smoke! Cigarettes first came about in the late 1800s. The first cigarette machines produced 200 cigarettes per minute. Around this time cheap mass production and advertising made it easy for tobacco companies to expand their market. Smoking increased during the world wars as cigarettes were being shipped to soldiers for free. Too many people are dying from smoke related diseases in this country and it has to stop.
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Tobacco kills more Americans every year than AIDS, drugs, car accidents and gun violence(standaz.com). That is because cigarettes have thousands of harmful chemicals in them. 70 of which are known to be cancerous to the body. There are more chemicals in cigarettes than there is tobacco. Each cigarette weighs about one gram and 65% of that is only tobacco.
According to cancer.org smoking causes cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes and lung disease. All which can kill. Smoking can also cause emphysema, bronchitis and chronic airway obstruction. These are the cancer types known to be caused by smoking: liver, colon, oral cavity, throat, esophagus, larynx (voice box), stomach, pancreas, bladder, kidney, cervix and acute myeloid leukemia. All of these can possibly be prevented if one does not smoke. Tobacco is the leading cause of preventable death in the world (Cancer.org).
9 out of 10 smokers start while still in high school before they are 18 years old. But almost all smokers start by the age of 26. More than 3,200 children and teens under 18 years old smoke their first cigarettes. 2,100 young adults turn into daily smokers each day (standaz.com).
Smoking is the cause for 1 in 5 deaths yearly in the United States. Meaning that it causes about 480,000 deaths per year (standaz.com).
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41,000 of those deaths are because of exposure to secondhand smoke, says quitterscircle.com. Exposure to secondhand smoking occurs mostly in homes, cars and workplaces. People think that opening a window and ventilation systems prevent secondhand smoke, but in reality, it does not.
According to smokershelp.net, smoking is an addiction. What makes cigarettes addictive is nicotine. The brain becomes dependent on the nicotine and if someone stops smoking cigarettes for a long period of time, he or she will start to experience withdrawal symptoms. Withdrawal has many physical symptoms and some people find it difficult to handle. This is why people who try to quit smoking relapse.
For those reasons, cigarettes should be banned in the United States. There are too many health risks involved. Too many people are dying unnecessarily every year in this country due to cigarettes smoking. Children are in arms ways and can get exposed to secondhand smoking because either their parents, grandparents and/or family members are smoking around them.
The government is not doing enough to prevent or stop the use of cigarettes. Tobacco companies should be legally responsible for the injuries caused by their products. Knowingly putting these addictive and life-threatening chemicals in their products should be deemed a crime!
For more information visit:
http://www.standaz.com/tobacco-facts/
https://www.quitterscircle.com/how-to-quit/9-facts-to-know-about-secondhand-smoke
https://smokershelp.net/understanding-addiction-to-cigarettes/
https://www.cancercouncil.com.au/31899/uncategorized/a-brief-history-of-smoking/
Categories: Features, Health, Uncategorized