Persuasive Essay On Smoking

Have you ever heard the term “tobacco”? Chances are you have. We are taught about tobacco as adolescence and the effects it has on the human body. Impacts that are so great it turns our bodies into grotesque machines that run on this chemical. Have we forgotten the photographs of blackened lungs and yellow-brown teeth from our sixth grade text-books? It seems we have. 15.7% of all American teenagers smoke. 5.6% of all American teenagers use a smokeless tobacco products. These numbers are at an all-time low, but don’t you think we can do better? I know we can. In 2013 a percentage of 17.8 adults smoke. About 3.5 percent of American adults use a smokeless tobacco product. Need more convincing? Half of all cigarette smokers’ deaths are caused by smoking. Over 6

Over the last few decades, tobacco and nicotine prevention efforts have risen to an all time high. Prevention efforts focus on education to the public of the negative effects on one’s health when using tobacco and nicotine products, as well as with pleas to healthcare policymakers to increase restrictions on product manufacturing and sales. One policy effort growing in popularity in the United States is called Tobacco 21, which proposes to raise the legal age of purchase for consumers of tobacco and nicotine products to 21 years of age (Farber, Pakhale, & Neptune, 2016). Farber, Pakhale, and Neptune (2016) state that 90% of tobacco and nicotine users begin smoking before the age of 18, with 99% of users starting before the age of 26. Lower smoking cessation rates are associated with earlier ages of initiation and the tobacco industry is known to target youth in advertisement of these products lending to the early age of initiation. The tobacco industry themselves admit that increasing the age allowed for purchase to exclude youth would substantially effect their sales. Tobacco 21 laws also deter adolescents from gaining tobacco or nicotine products from friends 18 to 21 years of age, which is the most likely age group to supply younger teens. With this knowledge, placing tighter restrictions on consumers younger than 21 years of age, using the Tobacco 21 policy, may deter tobacco and nicotine initiation in hopes to prevent individual use at all in the future (Farber

Is smoking a cigarette like aiming a smoking gun to your head? Absolutely, yes! The photo above, has a very powerful message to be shared with people all over the world. The creator of the picture above is, The American Cancer Society. This is an organization that is trying to heighten awareness of the dangers of smoking, the most threatening danger being, cancer. They also promote relays which help raise money for ads and research. The money raised helps to inform people of the dangers smoking and what the negative outcomes of such a habit. This society also helps with finding treatment options. They are helping people cope with the side effects of various cancers or to advise on health insurance. A certain population of people, particularly young people, see smoking as a cool or hip idea to fit in. The goal of this visual argument is to inform people who smoke cigarettes that they should just hold a gun to their heads. The American people should be against nonsmoking because of the feelings you get when smoking, the chemicals that are involved, and how the cigarette will kill like a loaded gun.

Smoking tobacco is probably one of the worst habits humankind has developed. Originating as a tradition of the Native Americans, practiced mostly on special occasions, smoking has gradually become a kind of mass addiction. Due to the efforts of tobacco companies seeking to increase their sales, people started smoking more and more often; the evolution of a more traditional pipe to a cigarette took some time, but eventually tobacco became more affordable and easier to use (you now simply need to light it up, instead of having to always carry a tobacco pouch, stuff a pipe, puff it, and so on). As a result, deaths and health issues connected to tobacco consumption became a worldwide

Smoking kills. Smoking can cause cancer and other bad diseases. Also, companies have made cigarettes in different flavors which are worse than regular cigarettes. People who smoke can be addicted. If you try to stop smoking cold turkey, it will give you headaches and stomachaches. I wanted to research this topic because I have some really close friends and they have family that smoke. Their great-grandpa died from smoking. Also, I noticed a lot of people are dying because they made the bad decision to smoke. Some people started to smoke when they were teenagers. They got addicted to it, and now they can’t stop smoking. I wanted to try to find a way people who smoke can stop. How can countries solve and stop smoking? This problem can be solved and it will be solved because countries are starting to ban smoking from certain places.

The Institute of Medicine found that children, who are born between 2000 and 2019, would suffer 249,000 fewer premature deaths and 45,000 fewer deaths from lung cancer, when the legal age to purchase tobacco is increased from 18 to 21 years old (atg.wa.gov 2016). Tobacco is the leading cause of preventable death in the U.S, which causes many chronic health complications such as heart disease, cancer, and lung disease (atg.wa.gov 2016). Raising the legal age to purchase tobacco products to 21 in Washington state will decrease the use later in adult life specifically, ages 15 to 17 who are targeted the most through tobacco companies due to their vulnerability and gives loyalty to a specific tobacco company from the addiction of nicotine. Needham, Massachusetts campaigned to raise the legal age to purchase tobacco products from 18 to 21 in 2005 and won. Results are already compelling, showing that between 2006 and 2012 Needham’s high school smoking rate dropped more than half among girls and boys (atg.wa.gov 2016). Given that nicotine can be such an addictive drug and be seen to be used as a coping mechanism, specifically ages 15 to 17 through their developing stages of life, needs to encounter harder access to get their hands on tobacco products. According to the Center of Disease Control, one in 13 Americans age 17 or younger alive today are estimated to die prematurely due to the effects of smoking (atg.wa.gov 2016). Raising the legal age to

Cigarette smoking has been identified as the number one cause of preventable disease as well as, death worldwide. Today, smoking-related diseases are claiming over 4 00,000 American lives each year. Among people who smoke, 70 percent of them are teenager. Smoking harms almost every organ in the body, causing lung cancer, coronary heart disease, and chronic pulmonary diseases. As a result, researchers have found out that teenagers in Washington State start to purchase tobacco at an early age. The Washington State’s top lawyer was set to unveil legislation seeking to raise legal the smoking age from 18 to 21 (Morris). If the bill would be passed

The main problem that does not help convincing our teens that smoking is bad for them is the public media. We see it in commercials, magazines adds, billboards and all over the internet. We need to stop all these type of advertisements, we need to focus on positive advertisement. Why not advertise the consequences of smoking? How we harm our body and the people around us. Kids think it's cool to smoke and that the younger they are, the cooler they think they look. We need to educate our teens by having mandatory smoking prevention programs at school. Once a teen tries their first cigarette, those who continue to smoke will typically hang out with the same-aged friends as their steady source of cigarettes and tobacco (U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, 183). Typically, an increase in price of tobacco products of 10% causes a fall in smoking of 4% in adults and 6% in children (Jamrozik, 760). Once we increase the price of tobacco products, it will be difficult for our teens to

They turned to adolescents, who are easier to influence than mature adults. “Nearly 90% of adult smokers in the United States began smoking by age 18 years” states the Center for Disease Control in a 2012 study (Basic). This is the basis of organizations such as Truth, who is “about finding and turbo-charging new fun ways to do what no generation has ever done before - end smoking” (Facts). The drive to end tobacco use in the younger population is derived not only from the fact that people are less likely to start smoking the older they become, but also because “one-third of [current youth users] will eventually die from tobacco-related diseases” (Epstein). Tobacco companies attempt to fool younger consumers by creating the fireless cigarette, or the E-cigarette, adding fun flavors such as butter crumble or berry, and making it appear safer because it has no smoke (Facts). It’s working. Between 2011 and 2012, the amount of teenagers using e-cigarettes has “more than doubled” (Health). Similar to the E-cigarette is hookah, another vaporous pastime for young adults, which many people falsely assume to be relatively safe, oblivious to the fact that in one hookah session a person inhales “100 to 200 times as much smoke as from a single cigarette” (Facts). With the decline

Smoking is often viewed as a bad thing that definitely affects your health, but some teens believe that when you begin to smoke you become more popular. “90 percent of smokers began before the age 19 and about 30 percent of teen smokers continued smoking and died early from a smoking-related disease. On average, these smokers died 13 to 14 years earlier than nonsmokers” (“11 Facts about Teen Smoking”). The idea of smoking is a very controversial topic in communities and the legal smoking age needs to be raised to an age where smoking won’t affect you in some of the harsh ways it affects teens. Yes, it is obvious that smoking will still affect a person some. The age for buying and using tobacco should be raised to 25.

An Australian survey revealed that the age of which a person first smoked a cigarette has risen slightly from 14.2 years of age in 1995 to 15.9 years of age in 2013. (B) An American national survey showed that 9.3% of students had smoked one full cigarette before the age 13. A further study conducted in 2014 indicated that 34.4% of twelfth grades students and 22.6% of tenth grade students had tried smoking, (C) well below the legal age.

Research has shown that smokers today start before they were 18 years old and are less likely to quit. If the legal age to smoke were raised throughout the country, this would make it difficult for teen to obtain these cigarettes. By performing this act, the prevalence of teen smoking would drop from 13.3% to 2.4%, which

Imagine your life being slowly sucked away because of a cigarette that costed you money. This is the real truth of what a cigarette does to your life and more than enough reasons on why minors shouldn’t smoke. It has been studied that before smoking, minors would do exceptional on their tests that they took at school, but after they started their test scores started to lessen by about 0.08 percent each day from one cigarette. Many teen smokers say that smoking for their age is alright, as they get a “high” from it and they have a good time. Even though smoking for minors seems okay, it isn’t because it affects the genes inside their brains negatively, the U.S. has even seen the threat of it and banned it in most of it’s states, and when minors

Unfortunately, Scullion, Crumbie, Cumming, and Jebb (2013) warn there are always issues with age barriers--forbidden fruit can seem all the more attractive, especially to young people who can become inventive in their ability to access what they should not. Scullion et. al indicated research appears to show that increasing the minimum age for buying tobacco reduces the prevalence of smoking among young people. Sussman and Ping (2009) noted daily cigarette smoking prevalence in the United States increases from approximately four percent among 12-year-olds, 8 percent among 16-year-olds, 12 percent among 18-year-olds, 15 percent among 20-year-olds, and levels of among 26-year-olds at 22 percent. Otten, Van de Ven, Engels, and Van den Eijnden

One of the largest issues today is adolescent smoking. According to a heath based website, nearly 90% of adult smokers start while they are still teens and they never intend to get hooked. They may start by bumming a cigarette or two from a friend at a party, and then go on to buying an occasional pack. Soon they realize that they can't go without that pack. They've gotten used to reaching for a cigarette first thing in the morning, after meals, or during any stressful time. They become addicted, both physically and psychologically. According to the American Lung Association, each day 6,000 children under the age of 18 smoke their first cigarette. Almost 2,000 of them will become regular smokers – that’s 757, 000 new smokers annually!