ResearchPaper

Arrianna Sawyer Professor Hartman English 103 November 1, 2010 Should tobacco be banned?  Should the government ban tobacco just like any other harmful drugs? I am going to analyze why some believe that tobacco should be banned. Also I am going analyze why tobacco should still be legal. Some people say that tobacco is harmful to the body. Others say that people have a choice into what we put into our bodies. But if something is harmful to our body, we should ban the harmful substance right? The government bans everything else so why not tobacco? We have marijuana banned, so what is the difference from having tobacco banned? Tobacco is in cigarettes and they put harmful things into the cigarettes. The reason that tobacco have not been banned is because Tobacco company’s hire their own researchers for going over their product. They pay the researchers a lot of money to say that it is okay to use their product. Of course a company is going to do that, when they still want to make money. According to David Michaels from Baltimore Sun, he says that “Scientists paid to create doubt dissected every study and highlighted flaws and inconsistencies in order to convince public health officials not that cigarettes were safe, but that there was not yet sufficient evidence of their danger to justify limiting places where tobacco could be smoked.” There goes to show that the Tobacco companies will do anything at any cost just to make a buck. But yet it is killing Americans every day.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that “Worldwide, tobacco use causes more than 5 million deaths per year, and current trends show that tobacco use will cause more than 8 million deaths annually by 2030. In the United States, tobacco use is responsible for about one in five deaths annually (i.e., about 443,000 deaths per year, and an estimated 49,000 of these tobacco-related deaths are the result of secondhand smoke exposure. On average, smokers die 13 to 14 years earlier than nonsmokers.” The statistics says it all we should ban tobacco with no questions asked. People are even dying from second hand smoking. They are not even doing the smoking but people are dying. That is not fair nor is it considerate of the other people’s health. People should be held accountable, because they are putting other people’s health at risk. Already the death toll is at 5 million and it is going to keep rising for the next 20 years from now. But there could be a change from those numbers if somebody did something about it. The tobacco companies need to be held accountable for their wrong doings. They are misleading into thinking that there product is okay and not harmful. In reality they put more harmful chemicals into their product then what they say. Above the influence says that “When smoking tobacco, the user inhales tar, nicotine, carbon monoxide, and 200 known poisons into the lungs. The nicotine in cigarettes is powerfully addictive.” When you know that there are poisons in the in tobacco why would you still smoke? It is just like the tobacco companies are saying “Will you jump off a cliff.” Of course people are going to say no, but with using their products that is what exactly you are doing. Except you are killing yourself slowly but to a quicker death compared to a non-smoker. Above the influence and White Lies educate people about the truth about tobacco companies. There are harmful side effects from using tobacco and being around it too. The Center for Disease Control also says “Cigarette smoking accounts for about one-third of all cancers, including 90 percent of lung cancer cases. Smokeless tobacco (such as chewing tobacco and snuff) also increases the risk of cancer, especially oral cancers. In addition to cancer, smoking causes lung diseases such as chronic bronchitis and emphysema, and increases the risk of heart disease, including stroke, heart attack, vascular disease, and aneurysm. Smoking has also been linked to leukemia, cataracts, and pneumonia. The harmful effects of smoking extend far beyond the smoker. Exposure to secondhand smoke can cause serious diseases and death. Each year, an estimated 126 million Americans are regularly exposed to secondhand smoke and almost 50 thousand nonsmokers die from diseases caused by secondhand smoke exposure.” When people try to quit smoking they have awful withdrawals from the nicotine. It is no surprise that these things would happen all from tobacco. I mean who would not want to ban this product. No matter what kind of tobacco people use there are still side effects. Then there are some people who believe it is their body to do anything they want with it. Okay that is understandable, but when it comes to harming your body that is when the line should be drawn. If people think about it, we put people into mental wards when they can cause harm to their bodies. With tobacco you are doing the same thing. Some people say that since it is already legal, we should just keep it that way. Sometimes when people do things the first time around is not always the right and safe way for us. Well marijuana was legal, but the government banned it, so we should be able to do the same thing for tobacco. In Conclusion, the government should ban tobacco just like any other harmful drug out there. The numbers do not lie, so that says a lot if people are dying just from tobacco alone. If tobacco was banned there would a lot more healthy people. The death toll would go down tremendously. And we would not see a lot of our loved ones suffering from withdrawals.

 Works Cited  Michael, David. "Science-for-Hire Hazardous to Health." Common Dreams | News & Views. Baltimore Sun, 17 Apr. 2006. Web. 08 Nov. 2010. <http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0417-21.htm>. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">"Smoking and Tobacco Use :: Fact Sheet :: Fast Facts :: Office on Smoking and Health (OSH) :: CDC." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Office on Smoking and Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, 15 Sept. 2010. Web. 08 Nov. 2010. <http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast_facts/index.htm>. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">"Tobacco Facts (Cigs, Dip) | Drug Facts | AboveTheInfluence.com." AboveTheInfluence.com | AboveTheInfluence.com. National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign. Web. 08 Nov. 2010. <http://www.abovetheinfluence.com/facts/drugs-tobacco.aspx?id=search_properTobacco#>.