Smoking kills and costs the U. S. taxpaying public more than $334 billion a year. During a five-year period, it resulted in the deaths of around 438,000 people, including babies (Armour, et al). It costs approximately more than $167 billion in health care, $92 billion in productivity losses and $75 billion in medical expenses (American Lung Association, “Smoking 101”).
This does not include funeral services costs. With these considerations, the government should ban tobacco products smoking in all public places both indoors and outdoors in all U. S. states.
Cigarette smoke contains more than 4,800 chemicals (American Lung Association, “Smoking 101”). These chemicals include “formaldehyde, benzene, vinyl chloride, arsenic, ammonia and hydrogen cyanide” (American Lung Association, “Secondhand Smoke”). Biology classes often use formaldehyde to disinfect and temporarily preserve dead frogs and human corpses. As can be read from their containers, pesticides usually contain benzene. From the word ‘vinyl,’ most people can discern that vinyl chloride appears in vinyl products like PVC sanitary pipes. These pipes dispose human waste from toilets and bathrooms.
Throughout history, arsenic has had a notorious reputation as a poison. For gardeners, ammonia is a commonly known fertilizer ingredient. Meanwhile, most parents who watched TV would definitely remember the Tylenol scare in the 1980s. Someone tampered the drug with cyanide that lead to the immediate deaths of several people. With these chemicals that are present in cigarette smoke, one will obviously see why so many deaths have occurred. The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention report indicate that cigarette smoke does not only cause deaths due to diseases of the heart and lungs (Armour, et al).
Cigarette smoke also affects the lips, throat, stomach, cervix, kidney, bladder, bones and brain (Armour, et al). Aside from cancer and heart disease, cigarette smoke also contributes to leukemia, pneumonia, influenza, emphysema and other diseases (Armour, et al). The report shows that more than 158,000 people died from cancer, +137,000 from cardio-vascular diseases and +101,000 from respiratory diseases (Armour, et al). It likewise estimated 910 baby deaths because of pregnant mothers who smoked.Meanwhile, studies estimate that, of the 45. 1 million adult U.
S. smokers in 2005, around 8. million citizens in 2003 suffered from serious illnesses caused by smoking (American Lung Association, “Smoking 101”). Americans spend more than $334 billion a year to remedy the ill effects of cigarette smoke (American Lung Association, “Smoking 101”). This does not include the costs of buying the cigarette or related tobacco products for consumer use, costs of equipment like air filters and exhaust fans, costs of garbage disposal for the cigarette butts and packs that 45 million Americans consume everyday, and cost of funeral services when they die due to cigarette smoke.The American Lung Association cites that cigarette smoke costs approximately more than $167 billion for expenses in health care, $92 billion in productivity losses due to premature deaths and employee absenteeism due to illnesses, and $75 billion in direct medical expenses for drugs, pain relievers, etc.
(American Lung Association, “Smoking 101”). Most studies have not yet considered the effects of cigarette smoke on pets and the environment. For instance, consider the cigarette smoke that 45 million American smokers generate everyday.If all of these smokers went to see the Super Bowl, then football fans will only see toxic smoke on their television sets.
This is literally a poisonous mixture of cyanide, arsenic, ammonia, formaldehyde, chlorine and benzene on a large scale. It is doubtful whether a physically fit athlete or a healthy elephant can survive this environment. Consider also that cigarette smoke stays for hours even when all smokers have extinguished their cigarettes (American Lung Association, “Secondhand Smoke”).To illustrate, restaurants and bars have at least twice and even five times the smoke than the houses of smokers (American Lung Association, “Secondhand Smoke”).
In offices, it is even as high as six times (American Lung Association, “Secondhand Smoke”). Consequently, the American Lung Association cites: “Secondhand smoke causes approximately 3,400 lung cancer deaths and 46,000 heart disease deaths among adult nonsmokers… each year” (“Secondhand Smoke”). Certainly, the government does not hold smokers as accountable and responsible for the deaths of these nonsmokers.In this regard, smokers collectively murder thousands of Americans who do not smoke and yet do not pay for the damage that they have done to these lives or serve time for murder.
Nonsmokers who get sick because of second hand smoke pay the healthcare bills themselves. Likewise, when nonsmokers die their families shoulder the funeral bills. Nonsmokers are certainly not responsible for producing the cigarette smoke that they inhale; yet pay for the consequences that other people create.Fifteen states have already banned “smoking in almost all public places and workplaces, including restaurants and bars” (American Lung Association, “Secondhand Smoke”). Seven states more have also followed suit with legislation that are yet to take effect (American Lung Association, “Secondhand Smoke”).
This is not enough. All U. S. states must prohibit smoking in all public places.
This way smokers will control the volume of smoke they produce in places where they cannot harm other people. After all, cigarette smokers do not have a license to kill innocent civilians nor the authority to destroy the air that humans, animals and plants breath.
