Youth Smoking and Prevention Essay

The complex question that was asked in the post was, “What are the consequences the city of New York will face by raising the smoking age to twenty-one?” This paper will discuss the multifaceted controversial subject facing the New York City residents; those ages eighteen through twenty-one and many merchants around the city. Multiple opinions show why this bill is a very good decision when looking at the health at these eighteen to twenty-one year olds in addition to the city’s youth. When another argument shows the financial hardships going to be felt because this bill passed legislation. Then, there are those making claims about someone that is adult enough to go to war for our country should be adult enough to smoke.

It all boils down to its social history. In practically every era since it was discovered, tobacco has been a huge social phenomenon.

One of my first memories in the United States was taking a Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E) class. I was in sixth grade and a top student, as talking about drugs and alcohol and the way they affect us was fascinating to me. This is why, the following year, I volunteered to become a peer educator in Teens Against Tobacco Use (T.A.T.U). For a couple of years, I gave presentations to young students which included facts, demonstrations, and games, to spread the knowledge that tobacco is harmful and that staying away from smoking prolongs life expectancy and increases the quality of life. It should come as no surprise, then, that I consider myself a big proponent of staying tobacco-free and encouraging others to quit smoking as a great way to promote health. I remember watching my mom and sister as they took part in their nightly ritual of smoking a few cigarettes to unwind. “Did you know that a main component of cigarettes is used as rocket fuel?” I would ask them, as I opened the window and they stared back at me blankly. “We know, we know” was the answer every time. I knew that convincing them to quit was no easy task, but I was committed. Day after day, I proudly stated a new fact about the evils of smoking. Finally one day, they quit. At first, they attributed it to the cost. Since we had just immigrated to the United States, the cost of cigarettes was simply not something they could afford. I didn’t believe it. I proudly

Tobacco has been around in the world for over 2.5 million years. It was not until a few hundred years ago when the tobacco industry decided to put these crops into use and conjure up tobacco products for the community. A popular tobacco product in society is cigarettes, as they are cheap and simple to use. As long as one is over eighteen, acquiring cigarettes is a straightforward process for a reasonable price, albeit the sin tax. It was not until recently when cigarettes became widely controversial due to the plant containing nicotine, an addictive drug to the body. Aside from containing nicotine and other hazardous chemicals to the body, cigarettes also cause a whole host of health implications

This study will be conducted to find the correlation between Latino youths and smoking. The hypothesis for this study will be “Youths of Latino origin are more likely to have a higher smoking rate.” To assess what sets an individual at risk for smoking and what ethnicity is more at risk, three additional research questions will be used to understand the association with Latino youths and smoking. For example,

Consumption of Tobacco is a worldwide phenomenon. Nearly every country is planning to raise more restrictions around the consumption of Tobacco. The awareness about its ill effects is rising through the corridors of Parliaments of many countries with the help of governmental and non-governmental organizations. There are some internationally recognized organizations like the “World Lung Foundations” that are striving hard to reduce the consumption of tobacco to a bare minimum. There are numerous reasons that support the argument that tobacco should be completely banned from the United Sates.

Many drugs are used, misused, and abused in American society today. Some of these carry stigma in the general population, forcing users into an underground drug subculture. Others are accepted and almost promoted under certain circumstances. Tobacco is one of those drugs. Tobacco will be discussed in the context of cigarette smoking. This is not to undermine the existence or danger of other forms of tobacco, but instead to have an exhaustive discussion of cigarette smoking and its societal impact. Cigarettes are a means of inhaling tobacco, where it enters the lungs and is absorbed through the blood vessels, traveling to the heart, from which it is finally pumped to the brain (Hogan, Gabrielsen, Luna, and Grothaus 2003:76). Cigarettes are detrimental to society because they not only affect the user who chooses to smoke; they impact people around them through second-hand and residual smoke. The damage done by cigarettes is not impossible to address. Successful prevention measures are already in place, but this paper intends to suggest other more direct measures, especially related to statutory regulations.

Despite the prohibitions placed on tobacco in the eighteen nineties, by the first World War, negativity towards tobacco began to fade. The lack of scientific evidence that smoking was harmful at the beginning of the century, and the war effort increased the demand for cigarettes. People only suspected the addictiveness of Nicotine, but could not prove it. It was not until the mid nineteen fifties that smoking was linked to lung cancer and other illnesses. Also at this time, the Tobacco Institute was created. The Tobacco Institute is a lobby, or organization that seeks to influence lawmakers for their own benefit. Today in the nineties, tobacco is legal but restricted depending on where you go. Tobacco sales are restricted to minors, some places have banned vending machines, most have banned sale and use of tobacco in schools, and even more have prohibited the sale of single cigarettes, or free samples of cigarettes.

Cigarette companies today are making copious amounts of money in sales, and with all that money it does not seem that they will stop even with the heavy opposition they have been facing in previous years. Cigarette prices have been steadily increasing over the years, and people are spending more money on them than ever before. Just recently the United States government has made another proposal to raise the prices of cigarettes by $2.10 a pack (Heinskien, Schleicher, Barker, Yawen, & Chaloupka, 2017, p.1860). Most cigarettes are up to around $7-10 a pack, which is slowly becoming less affordable for smokers. The problem with this is due to nicotine addiction it is going to take more than a price raise to deter smokers. To try to prevent younger kids from being swayed into tobacco products schools and parents across the U.S. need to inform their kids about the dangers of cigarette smoking (Small, Kushner, & Neufeld, 2012,

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

The effects of cigarette smoking can be horrifying. Smoking is dangerous not only to those who smoke, but to non-smokers and unborn children as well. Cigarette smoking is also physically and socially harming.

Teenage smoking can be a result of the influence of other teens, or maybe the amount of peer pressure. This can cause a teen to want to smoke or even think about smoking (Alcid, Arthur, page 1). Statistics show that 794 student and 22.4 percent of teens claimed to be tobacco users. (Alcid, Arthur, page 1). Teens tend to be more abrasive when smoking, and seem to act different while smoking and once they have gotten into the habit of smoking make it a constant thing. In 2003, 21.9 percent of high school students currently smoke cigarettes (Alcid, Arthur, page 1).

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!

Attention getter: According to Tobacco-Free Kids, “about 400,000 people die from their own smoking each year, and about 50,000 die from second-hand smoke annually. Smoking kills more people than AIDS, alcohol, car accidents, illegal drugs, murders and

Cigarette smoking is something people all over the world have been doing for about 2000 years. Back in 2003, the first electronic cigarette was successfully created by a gentleman named Hon Lik. Lik was a 52 year old pharmacist at the time, whom of which was also a smoker. The inspiration behind making the electronic cigarette came after Lik’s father passed away from lung cancer due to him also being a heavy smoker. “A Historical Timeline of Electronic Cigarettes.” cassia.org. Consumer Advocates for Smoke Free Alternatives Association, 15 June 2017. The idea behind creating this device was to give smokers a way to still ingest nicotine, the most addictive chemical in tobacco cigarettes, without the countless negative health effects that