persuasive speech smoking ban

Negative Effects of Smoking Cigarettes Each year cigarettes are responsible for about 443,000 deaths, on average this is smokers dying 13 to 14 years sooner than nonsmokers1. Cigarette smoking is a horrible behavior in our daily lives. Smoking is not just horrible, but it also has many serious effects on your health, which are often deadly. There are over 4000 chemicals in cigarettes, hundreds to which are toxic to your body2. Smoking is a terrible and disgusting habit, because second hand smoke affects the ones around you, it can cause cancer and other health related diseases, and also the cost of cigarettes cause people to spend an outrageous amount of money. Smoking cigarettes isn’t always negative when it comes to the way you live your life and the effects it has on your health. It can ease the signs and symptoms of stress. The ‘pick me up’ you feel after smoking a cigarette only lasts for a short period of time before you need another cigarette because your craving the nicotine3. The good feeling that nicotine gives you, draws you back to want one more cigarette. Smoking is really just hurting you and the people around you. Stress is something that is going to be around your whole life so it is better to find other way to cope without smoking. Second hand smoke affects the people around you. A smoker does effect close coworkers and family members. Most of the smoke from a burning cigarette isn’t sucked down into the lungs of a smoker, but let out into the open air to be inhaled by anyone. Second hand smoke can cause heart disease, lung cancer, and the risk of SIDs which is something that can instantly kill infants. When it comes to babies and children there are many other complications that can affect them. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says 4that each year in the United States secondhand smoke causes an estimated 46,000 premature deaths from heart disease and an estimated 3,400 deaths each year from lung cancer in nonsmokers. Secondhand smoke contains more than 250 chemicals known to be toxic or cancer causing5. Children or babies exposed to this secondhand smoke are inhaling many of the same cancer causing substances as smokers are. Since 1964, 34 separate US Surgeon General’s reports have been written to make the public aware of the health issues linked to tobacco and secondhand smoke. The ongoing research used in these reports still supports the fact that tobacco and second hand smoke are linked to serious health problems that could be prevented6. According to the CDC SIDS is the sudden, unexplained, unexpected death of an infant in the first year of life, it is the leading cause of death in otherwise healthy infants. 7Chemicals in secondhand smoke appear to affect the brain in ways that interfere with its regulation of infants’ breathing. On average, Children are exposed to more secondhand smoke than nonsmoking adults. Cigarettes cause health risks that affect you in a negative way. Cigarettes contain arsenic, formaldehyde, lead, hydrogen cyanide, nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, ammonia, and 43 known carcinogens. They contain more than 4,000 ingredients which when burned, also produce compound chemicals8. Cigarettes can cause cancer, heart disease, stroke, lung disease, emphysema, bronchitis, chronic airway obstructions, and many other health related diseases. Cigarette smoking may also lead to changes in the smokers’ appearance over longer periods of time like wrinkling skin and yellowing of the teeth. In the United States, smoking is responsible for about one in five deaths annually which is about 443,00 deaths a year9. On average, smokers die 13 to14 years early then nonsmokers. In a specific case involving Shane, a 44 year old man who started smoking when he was 18 and was only 34 when his body became damaged from smoking. He discovered he had throat cancer, and had to get his larynx removed, part of his esophagus and collarbone. Part of his stomach had to be reshaped and stretched to serve as an esophagus. Now he speaks with an electro larynx and has a 1inch stoma in his neck so he can breathe. Even after being smoke free since 2003 his smoking still affects him, he just recently found out that he now has cancer in his chest10. Smoking increases your odds of life ending shorter because of avoidable health diseases that you could have easily prevented from not smoking. The amount of money people spend on cigarettes is a ridiculous amount, which could be spent on something more important. In the long run it hurts people when you invest in cigarettes and not in other things like bank accounts or safe stocks. The cigarette industry spends billions of dollars investing and promoting. According to the CDC cigarette smoking costs more than $193 billion a year, which is $97 billion in lost productivity plus $96 billion in health care expenditures11. Cigarettes aren’t cheap and quitting or never starting can save you money now and can also keep you from spending money on health problems in the future. For example if cigarettes are an average $5.50 for the cost of a pack of cigarettes and a smoker smokes a pack every day, in a month you would be spending $165 on cigarettes, when you could really save that much every month. If you saved this much every month, in five years you could have $9,900, $19,800 in ten years, and $39,600 in twenty years. Before you start just smoking think of the weekly spending you would be doing on just a pack of cigarettes when you could be doing something more important with your money. Smoking is a horrible choice and risk that affects you and the people around you in a negative way. There are many effects of smoking cigarettes, for example second hand smoke and the affect it has on people who are nonsmokers, they cause health risks that can cause death, and also it causes people to spend unnecessary amounts of money. Cigarettes are temporary thing that makes you feel good for a while, but overall the long term affects are dangerous to your life.

Works Cited
American Cancer Society . Secondhand Smoke. 17 January 2013. 27 February 2013 .
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Economic Facts About U.S. Tobacco Production and Use. 15 November 2012. February 27 2013 .
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Shane 's Story. 3 January 2013. 7 March 2013 .
K.H. Ginzel, M.D. Have You Ever Wondered What 's In a Cigarette? January 2013. 7 March 2013 .
Lifeschool. 30 Fascinating Cigarette Smoking Facts. 11 January 2009. 27 February 2013 .
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke: A Report of the Surgeon General, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 7 January 2007. 27 February 2013 .

Cited: American Cancer Society . Secondhand Smoke. 17 January 2013. 27 February 2013 . Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Economic Facts About U.S. Tobacco Production and Use. 15 November 2012. February 27 2013 . Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Shane 's Story. 3 January 2013. 7 March 2013 . K.H. Ginzel, M.D. Have You Ever Wondered What 's In a Cigarette? January 2013. 7 March 2013 . Lifeschool. 30 Fascinating Cigarette Smoking Facts. 11 January 2009. 27 February 2013 . U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke: A Report of the Surgeon General, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 7 January 2007. 27 February 2013 .