Smoking Report (Year 11-Esl)

ABSTRACT

Smoking is one major problem which affects mankind. It is even worse when adolescents smoke because of their limited knowledge about the impact of smoking. This report demonstrates how smoking causes problems in diverse ways especially to the health of adolescents. Although smoking of tobacco or cigarettes has been practised over centuries, smoking bans should be done according to various reasons which are stated in this report and link solutions which should be applied in society to prevent smoking.

AIMS

The purposes of this report are to emphasize the harmful impact of smoking especially among adolescents. Some backgrounds of tobacco smoking will be highlighted. Immediate and long term effects of smoking to adolescent’s health will be the focal point. It will also present statistics and data of smoking practices over the world and in Australia. Recommendations of how societies should take measures regarding smoking will also be discussed.

METHODOLOGY

This report collected different kinds of research in relation to smoking practices and the impact on adolescents’ health. Internet research, media, library sources and interview of real smokers were also used.

STATEMENT OF FINDINGS

Introduction

Since 5000BC, groups of people from all over the world started to smoke (Iain Gately, 2001). Reasons of why people take up or do not give up smoking are the core topics for present debate in every society. It is widely accepted that smoking causes major health problems and long term effects. This report focuses on the negative impact of adolescent smoking.

Body

Tobacco plants have been growing since 6000BC in Northern and Southern America. Throughout history tobacco was used to sniff, chew, eat, drink, smear over bodies, in eye drops, enemas (treatment for constipation) and smoke (Iain Gately, 2001). Tobacco smoking is a practice which people burn tobacco in a form of cigarette, cigar or in a pipe.

A report in 2006 from The Centre for Young Women 's Health Staff stated that cigarettes are made from massive quantity of over 4000 chemicals. Most of them are poisons such as:
• Nicotine (addictive and deadly poison),
• Arsenic (used in rat poison),
• Mathone (a component of rocket fuel),
• Ammonia (used in floor cleaner),
• Cadminm (used in batteries),
• Carbon Monoxide (part of car exhaust),
• Formaldehyde (used to preserve body tissue),
• Butane (lighter fluid),
• Hydrogen Cyanide (poison used in gas chamber) and many other worse ones.

Larissa Hirsch (2007) described that each cigarette that people smoke everyday wastes from 5 to 20 minutes of their life. Physical impacts of smoking are bad skin, bad smells of clothes and hair, bad breath, acute respiratory tract infections and reducing the athletic performance. What is even worse is that, in a long term consequence, smoking can cause lung cancer, heart diseases, asthma, gangrene, miscarriage, stroke, low birth weight and more. Mental health problems caused by smoking are psychological distresses and depression (Janice and Bill Royce, 2007).

There are many reasons why people take up smoking. It has been confirmed that most people started to smoke before they are 18 (Larissa Hirsch, 2007). In this age group, they were too immature to acknowledge the bad effect smoking can cause. They simply thought that smoking is cool so they tried their first cigarette with friends who smoke. The main trouble is the addiction which is caused by nicotine (Lynch B and Bonnie R, 1994). A 17 year-old school student in Brisbane QLD, Australia said, “I just cannot stop smoking even if I know clearly that it is horrible to my health. It just makes me feel comfortable in some ways.” Since public cigarette advertisements are still legal in some countries, Tracey Lynn Wise (1998) insists that the message encourage adolescents to start smoking or keep smoking. Moreover, they see that everyone is doing it. Some people believe that smoking would help them lose weight. “A study by a team from the universities of New South Wales and Melbourne has found a few cigarettes a day may actually result in the body storing too much fat, not less.” said Lisa Millar (2007). This is supported by a research published in the American Journal of Physiology, which showed that smoking mice might have eaten less but they still kept the kilograms (Lisa Millar, 2007).
There is approximately between 1.1 and 1.4 billion out of 5.8 billion around the world who are regular smokers. Every eight seconds, a person is killed by smoking, which equals to 4 million annually worldwide (Neil Francey, 2001). According to Australian Council on Smoking & Health, more than 70,000 Australian adolescents became hooked on cigarettes each year. Everyday in Australia, 500 of school kids have their first try of cigarette smoking.

Since nicotine is addictive like heroine and alcohol, 192 of them became regular smokers. Investigators in Graphic Health Warnings 2007 reported that 20% the Australian population are smokers. Over 18,000 Australians die annually due to smoking. Smoking practice varies from one country to another. While 86% of men smoke in Cambodia, only 26% of men smoke in Australia. In reality, smokers spend between $3 and $10 per day on cigarettes. National study reported that tobacco smoking costs Australia $21 billion a year in health, business and social costs. Tobacco business costs annually over $3.5 billion (David J. Collins and Helen M. Lapsley, 2002). In the USA, investigators found that more than $186 billion was spent on lost of productivity and health care expenditures.

EVALUATION OF FINDINGS

All things considered, smoking is enormously detrimental for humans. Smoking causes a wide range of different health problems and shortens life term. Moreover, it puts financial burden not only on smokers themselves but also on the society as a whole. It is important to note that smoking causes mostly long term bad effects which are not clearly seen in adolescents who just begin to smoke.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Collins, D.J. and Lapsley, H.M. (1998-9). Counting the cost: estimates of the social costs of drug abuse in Australia 1998-9. [Internet]. Available from: http://www.health.gov.au/internet/wcms/publishing.nsf/Content/health-pubhlth-publicat-mono.htm/$FILE/mono49.pdf Accessed: (29 February 2008)
2. Francey, N. (2001). The Death Toll from Tobacco. A Crime Against Humanity. [Internet]. Available from: http://www.ashaust.org.au/lv4/Lv4ASH_death_toll.htm Accessed: (7 March 2008)
3. Gately, I. Tobacco. [Internet]. Available from: http://www.slideshare.net/dcinc66/tobacco
Accessed: (21 March 2008)
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National Tobacco Campaign - Introduction of health warnings. [Internet]. Available from: http://www.quitnow.info.au/internet/quitnow/publishing.nsf/Content/warnings-lp Accessed: (29 February 2008)
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Accessed: (21 March 2008)
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Available from: http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Fall98/Wise/page2.html Accessed: (10 March 2008)

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