Should_Smoking_Be_Banned

Should Smoking Be Banned'   Should smoking be banned' In my opinion we should all take advice from the government of Singapore, where smoking in public is banned. Smokers are forced to use specially built rooms with huge extractor fans to stop the smoke getting out. If you still want to smoke, the people who clean the ashtrays in the smoke rooms wear latex gloves and dust guards to prevent them inhaling any smoke. Some may say this is a bit extreme, but I solemnly believe that if we want to bring an end to the increase of smokers then we have to start thinking in the same manner as the government of Singapore.  Some people say “smokers must be mad” and in actual fact they are right. It has been proven through research that forty-four percent of smokers are mentally ill, but what is unknown is whether the condition was present before the person smoked or if smoking was a cause of their illness. Smoking has many effects on the body. In the most extreme, but common, cases people die from the effects of smoking on their bodies. They contract illness such as lung cancer and throat cancer and after battling these illnesses for long periods of time most people die. But everyone who smokes experiences the general decline in their health as a result of the drug. As well as effects on the body smoking also affects our life as some people refuse to be seen with a smoker, while others are scared for their own health when near a smoker. The main smoking related illnesses in the U.K are lung cancer and different forms of chronic obstructive lung disease. 84% of people who die from lung cancer are smokers as are 83% of people who die from a form of chronic lung disease . Although smoking is permitted in this country, while other drugs are illegal, ironically smoking is the greatest cause of preventable illnesses and premature deaths killing an estimated thirteen people every hour.  Smoking came to Britain in the 1600’s but only started to become ‘fashionable’ and ‘cool’ in the sixties and seventies. The main reason for its attraction was that supermodels, pop stars and other celebrities, whom people idolise, all smoked because they did not know the risks. You had to smoke to be ‘cool’. We know this because of the numbers of smokers rising and rising until 1972 and then dropping as we realise that smoking is not ‘cool’ but then again starting to rise as smoking comes back into fashion in 1996. This pattern is illustrated below.  [pic] This graph clearly shows the smoking trends of the seventies, Eighties and nineties.   Now we are in the twentieth century, and as we try to live healthier lives, the smokers of the past are trying to end their addiction. Unlike the sixties, seventies, eighties and nineties, the biggest percentage of smokers are now teenage girls between the age of eleven and fifteen. This group makes up fifteen percent of all smokers. One teenage girl said “if we didn’t spend the money on fags we’d spend it on sweeties or other junk”. Such an attitude is worrying and clearly immature. It appears that teenagers do not have a clear understanding of the addictive nature of the “habit” which they have opted to take up. They have no idea that their first breath of smoke will later cause them to be taking a premature last breath. The graph overleaf shows the figures of teenagers between eleven and fifteen who smoked during the period 1972 to 1996  [pic] This graph shows the dramatic increase in female Smokers between ages eleven and fifteen starting in nineteen ninety-four.   Cigarettes are expensive. At over four pounds for a packet of twenty it would be understandable to expect smokers to complain. But when we consider how much smokers cost the NHS, between smoking related illnesses, diseases, paying for the GP’s time and the cost of operating (nearly 1.7 billion pounds per year), we have to argue that the cost of cigarettes is correct and some may even go as far to say too little. A smoker’s reply to that would be that the government gets about three-quarters of the money from a packet of cigarettes through various taxes, It does not necessarily follow that the NHS receives all of that extra money. 1.7 billion pounds of their budget is wasted on treating illnesses, which wouldn’t even be around if people weren’t so egotistic when they were teenagers, when it could be used to build more hospitals in rural areas or pay for more surgeons to take the strain of the huge waiting lists for surgery. What started off as a teenage fashion accessory has turned into a mass murderer and has already reduced every regular smoker’s lifespan by around sixteen years.   If the wealth of evidence available to persuade smokers of the damage they are doing to themselves is not a deterrent, then the fact that when they smoke they damage other people’s health should be. A medical survey among children ages between four and ten showed that Cotinine (a chemical released by cigarettes when smoked) was undetectable in seventeen percent of children who's parents were both non-smokers compared to only two percent of children who have at least one smoking parent. This statistic is clear evidence that parents should have more responsibility for their children’s health; that endangering their lives through smoking reveals a callous, arrogant disregard for parenting; that those who participate in harming their children’s health through smoking are not really parents at all.   Should smoking be banned' After considering all the evidence I still solemnly believe that smoking should be banned completely outside special designated smoking areas and anyone who is caught smoking out with these areas should be fined severely.