Cigarette smokers, regardless of the expression “smoking is bad,” did you know that smoking has benefits besides pleasure? In fact, cigarette smoking has been proven to have several health benefits by providing alternative relief or prevention of several diseases. As a health benefit to smokers, each puff is a relief of some anxiety and has been shown to decrease psychiatric, cognitive, sensory, and physical effects of schizophrenia and ease antipsychotic drug side effects (Russo). Another benefit provided from smoking cigarettes is the decreased risk of Parkinson’s Disease and Alzheimer’s Disease, which several different studies have confirmed. Tobacco has also been confirmed to be an appetite suppressant, having the ability to treat obesity, and it has been associated with the decreased risk of some inflammatory disorders (Russo). However, even though benefits can be reaped of smoking, smoking is not beneficial but is self-negligent, life endangerment because its adverse factors are by far much greater than all of the good factors combined.
Cigarette smokers are usually unaware of how they are being ripped off, used, and abused in many different aspects. The obvious aspect is money; cigarettes these days go for at least $5.00 a pack in the U.S., if not more. How is that right? They are just a pack of smokes, but there is much more to the abuse than inflation. Cigarettes to smokers are their calm in the storm or their boost in the day. For the longest time, our dear Uncle Sam (the government) has been slightly negligent to his family (U.S. citizens) by allowing the self-abuse of smoking for money. It seems that the more negatively-associated health effects that exist, the higher the price has gone; it’s like Uncle Sam has been saying “You can kill yourself, but only if you give me money for it first.” Finally, Uncle Sam is beginning to take necessary measures more than the Surgeon General’s warning to at least imply that he slightly cares for his family by passing the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act on June 22, 2009, which gives the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the control to regulate the tobacco industry (HHS). Since the 1980s, the government has required only the Surgeon General’s Warning in small and mostly unnoticed print on cigarette packs, which has similar variations, but usually states “SURGEON GENERAL’S WARNING: Smoking Causes Lung Cancer, Heart Disease, Emphysema, And May Complicate Pregnancy.” On June 21, 2011, with intentions of preventing children from smoking and convincing current smokers to quit, the FDA revealed their new approach to tobacco regulation: as of September 2012, every pack of cigarettes sold in the U.S. and all cigarette ads are required to display nine graphic health warnings to ensure Americans understand the dangers of smoking and no additives are allowed that will provide a characterizing flavor (HHS). However, the government is not the only entity that receives profit from cigarettes, but the tobacco industry does too.
The tobacco industry has always portrayed itself as a smoker’s friend by supporting and promoting smokers’ rights. What smokers don’t know is that the industry is merely using them for one thing and one thing only: money. Their greed has corrupted them just as drugs corrupt a drug addict: they find any and every possible justification for what they do and blame all faults on others. Tobacco industry contributors argue that the manufacturing of tobacco is a critical economical factor because of revenue generated by the government and farmers, which the U.S. received nearly $17 million in tax revenue in 2008 (State and Local Tax Revenue Selected Years 1977-2008). The industry constantly argues that they help the social environment and claim that over 400 thousand jobs are directly linked with the industry and an additional almost 300 thousand jobs are provided from allied industries (Breed). The industry attempts to prevent the passing of smoke free policies and claims that many businesses will lose profit, but they ignore the cost of illnesses from their products. Also, according to Paul Mason, author of “Know the Facts” book series, besides suggesting that smoking is economically beneficial from profit for the government and industry workers, the tobacco industry also suggests smoking is economically beneficial because the dead don’t need doctors, money, or a place to live (38). Still, both the tobacco industry and the government have neglected to completely disclose the extent of harms inflicted from smoking.
The harms resulted from smoking can be categorized in several categories: psychological, physiological, and sociological. Generally, smokers are aware of the basic harms from their habit because of the Surgeon General’s warning on their packs of cigarettes. However, the label is not written to receive a whole lot of attention; therefore, it’s not a message that really sticks. Both the government and the tobacco industry fail to inform smokers of the psychological effects (or better yet, the trap).
“Oh, my God! I’m going to die if I don’t smoke a cigarette soon” is a common expression among smokers, which in all reality is not true. Cigarettes are not food or water; life can be lived much longer without them. Smoking usually begins based on psychosocial factors (and more often than not begins in early adolescence), and therefore, its road to ruin begins with the user’s mentality (Slowik). The nicotine in tobacco is able to convince people that they need it to function by altering electrical activity of the brain, but the addiction begins at a psychological phase (Slowik). Because a smoker mentally adapts to the unpleasant effects of smoking, many smokers only notice the pleasurable effects of relaxation, alertness, and stress relief, which the primary contributors are the effects on the heart, nervous system, and endocrine system (Jones). Like Joe Jackson, a musician, concludes, the definition of addiction is scientifically unclear and separating addictions from “habits, rituals, or pleasures” is difficult because it is pleasurable (which most people don’t really want to give up), leaving it a question of personality (not the substance) (109). After regularly smoking for a short period of time, tolerance and psychological dependence occurs; this then leads to physical dependence, leaving nicotine highly addictive like heroin and cocaine. However, most physical withdrawal symptoms are psychologically induced—for example, if someone misplaces their keys in desperate time of need, that person’s mind induces panic and anxiety. Unfortunately, the psychosocial-based initiation begins the road of physical damages to the body.
Although the psychological effects are what gets a person “hooked” and prevent them from quitting, the long unnoticed physical damages are extensive repercussions that eventually surface. The primary cause of death from smoking is cardiovascular disease, and the most common cause of sudden death is from blood clots located in both the heart and the brain (Petrie). According to Dr. Gavin Petrie, consultant chest physician, heart attack, paralysis, stroke, high blood pressure, kidney failure, and gangrene are just a few effects from some diseases that smoking can cause. The most well-known consequence of smoking is cancer: common cancers among smokers are of the lungs (which ninety percent of all lung cancer cases in the U.S. are due to smoking), throat, mouth, bladder, esophagus, kidneys, pancreas, and cervix (Slowik). Another common disease among smokers is Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), which in basic terms represents a group of conditions that make breathing difficult. Smoking also affects one’s appearance: stained teeth and gums, paler skin, and more wrinkles. Although there are many more harmful physical effects, smoking also imposes societal dangers.
Much less considered effects of smoking are those that damage society. One direct consequence of smoking for the society is pollution of the air (second hand smoke) and streets (cigarette butts). The side-stream smoke from cigarettes has greater physical risks than the smoke inhaled directly from a cigarette (Petrie). Also, excluding fires, every year, smoking costs the economy roughly $200 billion in medical expenses and productivity loss (HHS). Overall, the primary societal concern of the nation has appeared to be children smoking. The earlier on in life a person smokes, the higher the chances will be of addiction and physical consequences. However, those concerns are not the only ones regarding children smoking; another worry is the alleged gateway effect. Different studies have indicated that cigarette smoking leads to use of marijuana or other illicit drugs, but the gateway is based on social factors rather than the substance itself. At a young age, if children have access to cigarettes, then they are far more likely to have access to other drugs and will be more willing to experiment. Although one thing somehow always leads to the next, there is only one resolution.
To resolve and prevent many of these horrifying consequences, smokers must not decide to smoke in moderation but must decide to not smoke at all, or the government should completely restrict the sales of tobacco. In the U.S., 20.6 percent of adults and 19.5 percent of high school children are current cigarette smokers (HHS). According to the 2004 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, in the U.S., tobacco is the most widely used and leading preventable cause of death, and as stated by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), “Nearly 90 percent of smokers start smoking by age 18, and of smokers under 18 years of age, more than 6 million will die prematurely from a smoking related disease” (93,100). Currently, an estimated 440,000 Americans die every year as a result of damages caused by smoking (greater than alcohol, cocaine, heroin, homicide, suicide, car accidents, fire, and AIDs combined!) (National Institute on Drug Abuse 98). The point of initiation can mark the beginning of one’s tragic ending. Unfortunately, there are many smokers who eventually wish that they would have really known all of the details about their habit, so they could’ve made an informed decision. For example, take Bryan Curtis, whose story was published in the St. Petersburg Times newspaper in Florida on June 15, 1999.
Like many, the once handsome Bryan Curtis of St. Petersburg, Florida started smoking at a young age of only thirteen years old. Eventually, he smoked over two packs per day, and like most smokers, he mentioned quitting every now and then but was never really serious. He assumed time was not an issue, and thirty-year old laborers didn’t get cancer. However, after experiencing critical abdominal pain and an emergency room visit, it dawned on him how wrong he had been all along after discovering he had small-cell lung cancer. Unfortunately, not many people live more than a few months with that particular type of cancer (Landry). As a result, his only goal was to save at least one child from that same fate. Just nine weeks after being diagnosed and going through antagonizing chemotherapy, his life was taken, leaving behind a wife and a son, and his remains were not even similar to the man he was just two months before (see fig. 1 & fig. 2). His story is only one of many examples of why smokers should be informed of all benefits and consequences from tobacco smoking.
Fig. 1. 33 year old Bryan Curtis holds his son two months before death.
Fig. 2. June 3, 1999, the day of Bryan’s death as his wife and son sit at his bedside.
From ripped off and used to the abuse and permit to slowly die, smokers cannot let go of their dignity and allow their lives to be sacrificed at a price or surrendered to greed or lost to gluttony at the hands of the tobacco industry and the government by falling for their deception. If you try to kill someone, you go to jail; if you try to kill yourself, you have to be detained and professionally evaluated. But somehow, as long as they get paid for it, it’s ok for the tobacco industry and the government to allow smokers to slowly kill themselves. It has never been ok for a person to use you, so why allow corporations and the government? A little pleasure and a few benefits are not worth all of the risks from smoking, and the games and lies offered by the tobacco companies are not worth getting caught up in.
Works Cited
Breed, Larry. “Strategies of the Tobacco Industry.” Tobacco.org. Tobacco.org, N. d. N. pag. Web. 2 August 2011.
Fig. 1. 33 year old Bryan Curtis holds his son two months before death; “He Wanted You to Know”; Tampabay.com;
St. Petersburg Times, 15 June 1999; Web; 3 August 2011.
Fig 2. June 3, 1999, the day of Bryan’s death as his wife and son sit at his bedside; “He Wanted You to Know”;
Tampabay.com; St. Petersburg Times, 15 June 1999; Web; 3 August 2011.
HHS. “FDA Unveils Final Cigarette Warning Labels.” HHS.gov. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services,
21 June 2011. N. pag. Web. 1 August 2011.
---. “Overview: Cigarette Health Warnings.” FDA U.S. Food and Drug Administration. U.S. Department of Health &
Human Services, 22 June 2011. N. pag. Web. 1 August 2011.
---. “Tobacco Prevention and Control: New Actions to End the Tobacco Epidemic.” HHS.gov. U.S. Department of
Health & Human Services, N. d. N. pag. Web. 1 August 2011.
Jackson, Joe. “Harms from Tobacco Use Are Overstated and Distorted.” Opposing Viewpoints: Gateway Drugs.
Ed. Noël Merino. Greenhaven Press, 2008. 102-11. Print.
Jones, Allen. The Stop Smoking Guide. TheStopSmokingGuide.com, N. d. Web. 1 August 2011.
Landry, Sue. “He Wanted You to Know.” St. Petersburg Times 15 June 1999: N. pag. Web. 1 August 2011.
Mason, Paul. Know the Facts About Drinking and Smoking. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group Inc., 2010. Print.
National Institute on Drug Abuse. “Tobacco Use Is Addictive and Harmful.” Opposing Viewpoints: Gateway Drugs.
Ed. Noël Merino. Greenhaven Press, 2008. 92-101. Print.
Petrie, Gavin. “Smoking- Health Risks.” Netdoctor. NetDoctor.co.uk, 14 February 2005. N. pag. Web. 31 July 2011.
Russo, Juniper. “Health Benefits of Smoking Cigarettes: Could Tobacco Be Good for You.” Associated Content.
Yahoo! Inc., 8 December 2008. N. pag. Web. 31 July 2011.
Slowik, Guy. “How Smoking Affects the Body.” EhealthMD. Health Information Publications, 28 June 2011. N. pag.
Web. 1 August 2011.
---. “What is a Smoking Addiction.” EhealthMD. Health Information Publications, 28 June 2011. N. pag. Web.
1 August 2011.
“State and Local Tax Revenue Selected Years 1977-2008.” Tax Policy Center. Urban Institute and Brookings
Institution, 22 October 2010. N. pag. Web. 2 August 2011.
No comments:
Post a Comment