Smoking Behavior During Emerging Adulthood: A Longitudinal Analysis

Being exposed to second hand smoke from burning tobacco products causes disease and early death among nonsmokers. Public policies help to make and enforce new laws that are beneficial to the public, for instance, smoke free laws that prohibit smoking in public places like bars and restaurants to help improve the health of workers and the general population, there for saving lives by sparing non-smokers from breathing in the second-hand smoke. Smoking does not just harm the smoker it also harms people nearby, who breathe in the smoke. Tobacco smoke can cause cancer, strokes and heart disease and public policies makes us aware, cigarette smokers and tobacco companies in check.
In the article, Transitions in Smoking Behavior During Emerging Adulthood: A Longitudinal Analysis of the Effect of Home Smoking Bans, the authors explain how likely it is for children to become smokers if there is smoking the home, and the probability of a child that has not been exposed to smoking in the home the chances of them becoming a smoker. “Home smoking bans have emerged as an important yet understudied protective factor. Although the primary goal of a home ban is to protect children and adult nonsmokers from secondhand smoke,12 recent evidence suggests that home smoking restrictions promote antismoking attitudes and reduce initiation and
progression of smoking behavior among adolescents by changing norms about the prevalence and social acceptability of smoking.” Mathur et al (2014).
Now that it is medically proven that second hand smoke can affect children and other non-smokers as much as the smokers, exposing children in this atmosphere can cause, asthma attacks, respiratory infections, ear infections and asthma. Sick children miss out on playtime, school and are less energized and outgoing. Therefore, I am totally in agreement with The Times article, Smoke Zone: There is a strong case for banning smoking in cars with children present. “In the case of banning smoking in cars, children are being deprived of their liberty not to inhale polluted and harmful air. It does not matter that it is their parents who are ensuring the deprivation. The time for a ban on smoking in cars carrying children has come. Children are victims of an adult activity in which they are not engaging.” The Times (2014). Parents most times would throw themselves in front of a truck to save their child, but they won’t stop smoking around their children, to save them from, chronic respiratory disease, that could affect them for the rest of their lives. There are only negative effects when smoking around children, ever smelt cigarette smoke while driving in a car? It stifles you, you can’t breathe even if the windows are down, imagine in the winter, when its 10 degrees outside, and that’s how I’ve experienced it, not coming from a child.
The smoking bans that are enforced now, in restaurants, bar, and in some casino’s, is awesome, smoking in cars and in the house with children should be banned next.
It is the ethical thing to do, if you see children, to walk away before lighting a cigarette, not to smoke in front of building doors, in a car, or, in a park. Why should a child’s life be susceptible, to cancer, respiratory disease and ultimately death, because a smoker doesn’t care about theirs? Education, especially for the parents whom are smokers, need to be implemented as it pertains to their children and the effects and diseases they are exposing their children
too.
References
Mathur, C., Stigler, M. H., Erickson, D. J., Perry, C. L., & Forster, J. L. (2014). Transitions in smoking behavior during emerging adulthood: A longitudinal analysis of the effect of home smoking ban. American Journal of Public Health, 104(4), 715-720. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2013.301642.
Smoke zone: There is a strong case for banning smoking in cars with children. (2014, January 30). The Times. Retrieved from https://library.ashford.edu/ezproxy.aspx?url=http%3A//search.proquest.com/docview/1492442211?accountid=32521