Tobacco Use And Smoking Related Illness

Smoking is an activity that has been around for many years for people to use and adapt into their lifestyle. It is a tool that many people use to help reduce the stresses of life and put them in a comfortable position that enables them to cope with the hectic lifestyle they are living. However, smoking has been scientifically proven to cause many types of cancer, the most common being lung cancer resulting in numerous deaths across the United States. According to BBC, "Smoking is a greater cause of death and disability than any single disease" (BBC, 2). Evidently, the benefits and drawbacks of smoking have been debated for many years, and only recently have some countries have placed a ban in public places such as Britain and the United

Employers initially constructed charming smoking zones, designating for employees as a smokers' lounge; however, the concept, satisfied no one, considering, non-smokers customarily endured walking through clouds of smoke to reach work. Employers desired the smoking accommodations close to their jobs as possible, therefore, employees required less time for their smoke breaks. (Heathfield,

Raising taxes on tobacco products and implementing smoking cessation legislations can minimize the prevalence of smoking up to 30 percent to 80 percent over a 50-year period (Ekpu & Brown 2015).In 2009, NBC news stated that Kansas, one of the states, considering banning smoking at enclosed areas showed that if they banned smoking in restaurants, the state was going to save 20 million dollars in healthcare costs (Associated Health, 2009). West Virginia state implemented smoke-free laws and had an increase of almost 1 percent in restaurant employment (“Smoke Free Laws do not Harm Business,” 2017). Restaurant workers were more comfortable coming in to work knowing they would be breathing in fresh air. Although in Tennessee, percentage of adults who smoked in 2011 increased from 23 percent to 24.3 percent in 2015 (Fletcher, 2016). This increment was not that significant considering the fact that it was over a period of just 4 years. The annual health care cost in Tennessee directly to smoking increased from $2.16 billion in 2004 to $2.67 billion in 2017(“The Toll of Tobacco in Tennessee”, n.d.).

Smoking has resulted in over 20 million deaths since 1964. About 443,000 people die every year from smoking related illnesses and for every dead person, there are 20 people who grapple with one or more tobacco-related illnesses. The United States loses 193 billion USD annually in medical expenses and lost productivity. 17% of high school seniors are smokers, and one fifth of adult Americans continue to smoke. This paper aims to highlight the specific actions that have been taken by public health officials in the past and the path of action projected for the next decade.

The negative health effects of tobacco use have been well established. Tobacco use has been shown to cause acute and chronic respiratory disease, heart disease, many types of cancer, and is the leading cause of preventable morbidity and mortality in the United States, causing an estimated 443,000 deaths per year (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 2004). As the dangers of smoking have become better understood, reducing the number of people who smoke has become a major focus for those interested in public health. Efforts to restrict the advertisement and sale of tobacco, implement public smoking bans, and educate citizens through public service announcements have all had a sizeable effect on smoking rates in the U.S. In Fact, over

Banning of smoking in public places, such as restaurants and bars have been very positive outcomes for the recent years. Smoke-free policies do send strong and direct messages to

For years cigarettes have been known to cause cancer, emphysema, and other horrible illnesses. The deaths of over 420,000 Americans this year will be attributable to cigarettes. With some of the other causes of preventable deaths such as, alcohol, illegal drugs, AIDS, suicide, transportation accidents, fires, and guns, cigarettes still account for more preventable deaths than those do combined, as stated by Lonnie Bristow M.D. of the American Medical Association at her speech to Indiana University. Some researchers have also found that smoking by pregnant women causes the deaths of over 5,000 babies and 115,000 miscarriages. The best way to get rid of the suffering and loss of life by cigarettes is to ban them. We can no longer stand aside and watch fellow Americans die because they smoke cigarettes. Thousands of smokers try to rid

An estimated 36.5 million or 15.1 % of adults aged 18 years old and older currently smoke cigarettes and more than 16,000,000 have smoking or live with diseases that are related to smoking. According to US department of health and human services, over the past five decades, there is a significant decline in cigarette smoking in the U.S. The progress has slowed in recent years and the prevalence of use of other tobacco products such as vapes, e-cigars and smokeless tobacco

According to CDC (2011) smoking is not only the leading cause of preventable deaths, smoking aggravates the seriousness of other pathologies, creating health complications that need additional medical care, and requiring additional expense on the part of individuals and the taxpayers that support State and Federal health systems. Chronic illnesses, especially those that can lead to morbidity, the hours that employee can work and be productive. Therefore, there are additional costs to individuals and to the greater society. These additional costs and reductions in productivity can be avoided if States reinvest in smoking cessation campaigns at levels equal to or higher than in the 21st century. According to CDC (2011) and Werner (2008) smoking not only costs money, it takes off ten to fourteen years from the normal life expectancy of the smoker and those that are exposed to second hand smoke regularly.

To this day several people continue to smoke even after they are shown the effects and harm that they are doing to their own body and the risks that come from it. After several years of smoking their lives away people become diagnosed with Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, this is a disease that makes it harder for people to breathe. The disease only progresses if you continue to smoke and remains untreated and can lead to heart failure and even death. More than 16 million people in the United States of America have been diagnosed with a smoking-related disease. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “nearly 17 out of every 100 U.S. American adults at the age of 18 or older currently smoke cigarettes.” Smoking doesn’t

According to the Australian department of Health smoking, both directly and second hand, causes approximately 15,000 deaths per year due to related illnesses and costs the Australian people around $31.5 billion in social and economic costs. Even with the amount of deaths caused and the phenomenal costs to the Australian people, there is still no major movement to ban smoking in the workplace. There are many health, social and economic benefits to ban smoking in the workplace, inside and out.

In the summer of 2008, the Smokefree Air Act went into effect in Iowa. Smoking has been banned in public workplaces and transits. Users are fined $50 to $500 if they violate the act. Expanding the fine for smoking could also be another tool to put an end to smoking. Most smokers would rather not pay a large fee and may quit smoking altogether ("14 Central Pros and Cons of Smoking Bans”). At least eighty-two percent of the US population lives in a US state that has enacted a smoking ban. “Almost all states have passed some form of legislation to ban smoking in public areas. In fact, Medline Plus reports that as of May 2010, 39 states had some type of ban in place. According to Medline Plus, 26 of these states have banned smoking in all public places” (Cherney). In 2009, an act was issued to the FDA to stop advertising youth to purchase tobacco products and advertising it to the public. This act was called the, Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. This act issued to limit the persuasion of smoking in advertisements, sponsoring it in any sort of entertainment or event, and even sampling it (“Laws/Policies”). Banning smoking could also lessen air pollution, decrease fires, lower energy consumption, etcetera. Smoking causes multiple health problems but could easily be avoided by prohibiting

It has become common knowledge that smoking is bad for people’s health, nonetheless people continue to smoke. To be honest, that is fine. If people want to endanger themselves by smoking then I wish them a swift and peaceful end (though most smokers die a slow and agonizing death). What is not acceptable is the effect that smoke has on non-smokers who have almost no way of getting away from smoke unless they want to stay in their house. Smokers affect everyone around them for the worse. Smoking should be restricted or banned from all public places because the health of non-smokers should not be jeopardized by secondhand smoke.

@In America there are few topics which the general public has both fought against and supported for an elongated period of time such as the one of smoking laws. Back in 1964 the first surgeon general’s report on the adverse effects of smoking was published (1). Only a year had passed since the reports was published when the first law was set in place, the (cigarette labeling and advertising act of 1965) was the first of many laws that would be passed over the last 60 years (1). By 1971 the surgeon general had proposed a federal ban in public places followed by a report in 1972 that talked about the effects of secondhand smoke (1). Arizona was the first state to restrict smoking in public places but was soon followed by Connecticut and Minnesota. A few years later in 1986 the surgeon general released a report which focused on the consequences of secondhand smoke the report claimed that secondhand smoke was the cause of lung cancer in healthy nonsmokers. That same year the national research council issued a report on health consequences of involuntary smoking, as a result the American’s for nonsmokers rights became a national group. By January of 2014, 28 states had enacted statewide bans on smoking in all public places, with a few exceptions such as bars or other such places but there are laws that prohibit smoking in all 50 states in one form or another. Currently the limitations of where one may smoke are not the only laws that have been set in place. Currently tobacco is

this study is the next line of research because current research didn’t fully analyze how employment levels were changed following the enactment of smoke-free regulations, and as mention earlier there is still debate about the effects smoking restrictions have on businesses.