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Government Banning Cigarettes Essay

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Smoking is something that millions of Americans do every day and companies profit millions of dollars every year through the sales of cigarettes, but at what cost? Five dollars a pack for a cancered lung and a heart attack. A deadly addiction comparable to heroin or cocaine, cigarettes are the only product that efficiently kills more than five million people year -- one million in the Americas-- and is still legal. The damage that it causes does not surface until years later after habitual use. The government should issue a federal ban on cigarettes because of the adverse health effects.. Smoking is a dangerous and addictive habit; each year about 440,000 people perish in the United States due to tobacco smoking (Maugh). From those …show more content…

For the past few years, many people think that nicotine dependence does not begin until a few years of excessive smoking, nicotine withdrawal only happens to those who smoke at least five cigarettes a day, and the only way to combat the withdrawal symptoms is to keep nicotine in their bloodstream. Novices begin with smoking a cigarette once a day to fight the cravings and over time, the dependence grows with four to five a cigarettes a day and eventually smokers have a steady supply of cigarettes and smoke ten to twenty cigarettes per day to stop the withdrawals (Gardner).
Nicotine working with carbon monoxide causes heart disease that is associated with smoking (Novick). These two chemicals together accelerate the deposition of cholesterol in arteries eventually leading to arteriosclerosis, a disease that reduces blood flow. With the blood flow weakened, supply of oxygen lacks and as this happens; the heart’s need for oxygen increases by the stimulant effect of nicotine on the rate, forces the heart to contract and the lack of oxygen damage the heart, and increases the chance of a heart attack. In addition, many of the chemicals contained in cigarettes are items that are in your house. For example, Ammonia --which is contained in tobacco smoke--, is also in toilet cleaner and it flavors and frees nicotine from tobacco turning it into a gas (Johnson). Tobacco also has Benzene, Acetone,

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