Here are some more facts of the damage done just by passive smoking
- The health risks from mothers who smoke during pregnancy include premature birth, pregnancy complications, low-birth weight infants, stillbirth and a higher rate of infant mortality
- Exposure of babies to smoke from other members of the household before or after birth increases the risk of death – Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, and long-term health problems.
- Healthy non-smokers regularly exposed to passive smokers at home or in the workplace had a 91% greater risk of having a heart attack, occasional exposure had a 58% greater risk
- 24% greater risk of having lung cancer if living with a smoker
Then there are the other effects on both the passive smoker and the actual smoker
- Nose, throat and chest irritation, breathing difficulties, coughing and sneezing
- Red and running eyes
- Headaches, dizziness
- Nausea and lack of concentration
How can people so selfishly inflict this abuse upon another human? Why doesn’t the Court of Human Rights but a ban on cigarettes, surely this is a stronger case than trying to ban smacking?
Now lets have a look about the damage done to the actual smoker
- Every year in the UK about 111,000 people die before their time from smoking related diseases that is one death every 5 minutes, the time it takes to smoke a cigarette.
- 1 in every 6 deaths in due to smoking
- Lung cancer
- Oral and other neck and head cancers
- Bladder cancer
- Chronic bronchitis
- Emphysema
- Coronary artery disease (high blood pressure, stroke, heart disease)
Most of these facts are what people know already, so why do people persist in throwing money away on these smelly, silly, little sticks. Apart from the damage they do, if the average smoker has 10 cigarettes a day at the price of £2 that equals £14 a week, which is £56 a month totalling £760 a year. Many people smoke much more than this. It baffles me how people can actually afford this, often preferring to spend this money on themselves rather than food for their children, which I have known to be the case. If people can afford to smoke, in my opinion there is no way they should be allowed benefits.
Treating illness caused by smoking costs the NHS more than £400 million each year. Although guilty smokers tend to reply that the tax they pay on cigarettes pays for this, it doesn’t add to the same amount. Just think how much the hospital waiting lists would drop if these self-inflicted diseased people weren’t treated!
Of course there are the other costs involved, sickness and invalidity benefits, widows pensions and other benefits paid to families of those who die as a result of their smoking. Not to mention the 20.9 million working days lost each year due to sickness from chronic bronchitis, emphysema and asthma alone (Department of Social Security 1989)
Another few points to mention is how smoking affects the environment, theses are just a selection of many.
- Every day UK smokers throw away about 300 million butts and 20 million packets, many of which end up on the ground. How many times have you seen someone throw a butt from a car window, or just chuck then on the street? They don’t seem to class this as litter.
- A cigarette manufacturing machine uses 4 miles of paper a year
- It requires one tree to cure 300 cigarettes (WHO 19080). Which equals one tree a fortnight for the average smoker
- Growing tobacco means less land available for food crops. 10 to 20 million people could be fed by food crops grown instead (Barry M. 1991)
Finally I must speak a little about the image of the smoker.
There is nothing I fancy more than a girl with a cigarette in her mouth. As you approach her, and she accidentally burns you with the end, that wonderful smell comes from her breath, not minty fresh, but a stale, repugnant odour, which is also on her clothes. Those yellow, nicotine stained fingers, and not forgetting those dazzling mustard coloured teeth. Only joking, what a turn off! For some reason young people who smoke seem to think it is a sign of maturity, where as most adults shake their heads in despair at such childish behaviour. Those who smoke often have no interest in life; they don’t exercise or do a sport. Just ‘hang around’ with their mates, trying to look ‘big’ and intimidating.
This tar infested smelling, smoking, stick can either rapidly increase this suicide mission, but by you saying no! You have a chance in which you can live life!
