Persuasive Essay On Secondhand Smoke

Coming out of the tip of someone else's cigarette are double the concentrations of nicotine. There are three times the amount of the carcinogen benzo (a) pyrene, five times the amount of carbon monoxide and fifty times the amount of ammonia. On top of this the person quietly puffing away next to you is allowing arsenic, formaldehyde, vinyl chloride and hydrogen cyanide into the air that you are breathing. In despite of this knowledge 43% of children in the US are exposed to second hand smoke in their own homes. Despite the attempts of many places to ban smoking there are still millions of people, who are at risk from the effects of second hand smoke. Many of these will die prematurely.

Keep in mind, these people don?t smoke themselves, but they are still put at risk by the actions of others. The Saskatchewan Instite?s webpage goes on to state that half of all children exposed to second-hand smoke are exposed at home. While this is an important fact, its importance lies in opposite, half are exposed in places other than at home. In America 25,000 people are killed every year in car accidents, while 53,000 die from second-hand smoke (from Office on Smoking and Health, Center for Disease Control and Prevention, http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/sgr/sgr_1988/). Action must be taken to protect these people from a threat over which they have no control.

In the United States one out of every four children between the ages of three and eleven, live with a smoker in their household. Imagine someone putting another person’s life in danger because of a decision they make. Think about the children who are not able to speak up for themselves when it is their own parents putting them in danger. When you place someone in a situation where they are unable to directly express how they feel, you may be creating a very perilous environment. Second hand smoke can be extremely dangerous. Second hand smoke is smoke that comes from any form of tobacco that is exhaled and later inhaled by another person nearby. Second hand smoke can put just about anyone’s life in danger.

In accordance with this Utilitarianism trait, we should consider that when an individual smokes, second-hand and third-hand smoke is spread to those around. This type of specific smoke has “higher concentrations of cancer-causing agents (carcinogens) and is more toxic than mainstream smoke. It also has smaller particles than mainstream smoke. These smaller particles make their way into the lungs and the body’s cells more easily” (American Cancer Society, 2015). Additionally, this smoke can significantly hurt unborn children and babies. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs reported

Smoking is one of the leading causes of preventable deaths in the world. Although this lifestyle practice usually warrants a person’s conscious choice to inhale toxic fumes, more than the sole individual are affected by this habit. Passive or involuntary smoking results when bystanders are collaterally forced to also breathe in a product containing at least 70 carcinogens and 7000 chemicals, as a consequence of another person’s smoking (American Cancer Society, 2015). Evidence suggests secondhand smoking (SHS) can lead to “lung, larynx, pharynx, nasal sinuses, brain, bladder, rectum, stomach, and breast cancers” in adults, even though they never smoked firsthand. Although the severity of health abnormalities and illnesses vary due to exposure, the gravity of the repercussions of SHS cannot remain disregarded. The American Cancer Society proposes that due to a child’s pivotal physical, mental, and emotional development, they are “most affected by SHS and least able to avoid it” (2015). In addition to the impediment of a child’s development, environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) is potentially linked to the development of “lymphoma, leukemia, liver cancer, brain tumors, asthma, infections, and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)” (American Cancer Society, 2015). ETS is literally a grave dilemma plaguing nations.

A cigarette does not only shorten your life by puff, but also the life of your child. The use of tobacco "remains the leading preventable cause of death in the United States” causing more than 440,000 deaths each year and resulting in an annual cost of more than $75 billion in medical expenses, says David Marks in his novel, Overcoming Your Smoking Habits. Nonetheless, what is not discussed is secondhand smoke is the third leading cause of death in the United States, also known as chronic lower respiratory disease. Secondhand smoke can affect a child mentally and physically, from diseases to learning disabilities, and post-traumatic stress. Children from birth to seven years of age are especially vulnerable to secondhand smoke because their lungs are not fully developed. (Marks 3)

I stumbled out of a building, coughing and wheezing, smoke filled my eyes and lungs. I pulled my tie frantically, my head beating as I ran out the entryway. I was having my supper when a refined man at the table decided to light a cigarette. The smoke went directly to my face and lungs, suddenly, I could not inhale, my chest hurt and I froze.

Drifting tobacco smoke can trigger asthma attacks, bronchial infections, and other serious health problems in nonsmokers. For the 100 million Americans who have asthma, chronic bronchitis, chronic sinusitis, emphysema, or other breathing related conditions, it makes them especially susceptible to secondhand tobacco smoke.

Millions of Americans die every year from cigarette smoke, but not all of them are smokers. Conclusive information shows, “Since the 1964 Surgeon General’s Report, 2.5 million adults who were nonsmokers died because they breathed secondhand smoke” (“Health Effects”). These nonsmokers, who died from secondhand smoke related illnesses, were exposed to secondhand smoke throughout their lives in order for these illnesses to develop. Most adults who suffer from secondhand smoke related issues were raised in homes where their parents smoked, which left them to suffer in the deadly chemicals being vaporized within the air from the burning cigarettes. Parents are informed of the harm cigarettes cause to their own body, but they still continue to

Children who obtain such diseases that inhale secondhand smoke have no choice in what is happening to them. American parents that smoke will endanger a child and the child will grow up with a life of hardships. The children of this country are being put at a great disadvantage, and the government is standing aside allowing adult to smoke near children. The United States of America, our government needs to take a firmer stand on the health of our children, and make smoking illegal in the presence of children. Children’s lungs are vulnerable to the effects of secondhand smoke and can cause serious problems down the road.

Secondhand smoke is unhealthy for everyone, especially for young children. Children are more susceptible to suffer the detrimental health effects of secondhand smoke because they breathe in more air than adults due to their size and weight. In addition, children are constantly growing and developing. During their development stage, children are more sensitive to the consequences of secondhand smoke, which is ultimately dangerous to their immune and respiratory systems. Furthermore, secondhand smoke is significantly harmful to children with asthma, which is a chronic health condition whose symptoms include coughing, wheezing, and shortness of breath. Children, both with and without asthma, are powerless to protect themselves from the dangers of secondhand smoke, so we the adults have to protect them.

Tobacco is one of the prominent sources known to trigger cancer, respiratory, cardiovascular diseases and death internationally. Involuntary exposure to a combination of cigarette smoke and the exhaled smoke from smokers is considered as Second-hand smoke (SHS), which is inhaled by everyone and is also responsible to cause harmful effects on health. Tobacco smoke constitutes thousands of toxic chemicals, even though it is a known fact that some of these toxic chemicals can cause cancer, people smoke anyway. Exposure to second-hand smoke is a major concern in public places and at home since it can cause various health issues in infants, children, and adults.

Children do not deserve to be exposed to such toxic things so young. They are innocent victims to their parents' bad habit and life choices. Children are vulnerable and clearly do not know what these chemicals do to their bodies so they are defenseless against the dangers of secondhand smoke. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also states, "Secondhand smoke contains more than 7,000 chemicals, hundreds are toxic and about 70 are known to cause cancer." I believe that it is not okay to for parents to think that exposing children to secondhand smoke is not a problem.  This mentality that there is not a problem is the problem with secondhand smoking. I am not asking parents to stop smoking just to take is outside away from childrens' developing bodies.

During one’s lifetime they will make over a thousand mistakes that they will regret. One of those thousand mistakes they will regret will be smoking tobacco and tobacco products. Many people are going to regret smoking for multiple and various reasons that I am going to discuss in this essay. The reason I chose smoking as my Rhetoric topic is because the addiction people have to it. Also, another reason is because of the effects it has on people around it. The last reason why I chose smoking is because of Second-hand smoke.

It is estimated that 36.5 million adults smoke in the United States of America (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention B). A cigarette contains 7,000 chemicals and 70 of those can cause cancer (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention B). When someone decides to smoke a cigarette, they are not only choosing to allow those toxins into their body but are imposing all those same toxins on anyone around them. Secondhand smoke is the combination of smoke from the burning end of a cigarette and the smoke breathed out by smokers and is considered more dangerous then smoking the cigarette (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention B). Every year 480,000 people in the United States of America die because of cigarette smoking, which is the leading cause of preventable disease and death. Why has this deadly habit become such a casual part of the American life? This habit is not only harmful to the person smoking, but is hurting everyone around them. It may be their decision to smoke and cause damage to their own bodies but when they decide to smoke in public they are infringing on the rights of everyone around them right to protect their health. Smoking should be made illegal because it is not only harmful to the smokers but also causes harm to fetuses in utero, developing children and any other adults who may breathe that smoke in.