Why People actually smoke
Many of the teenage peer pressured smokers only still smoke because of the addictive drug; nicotine, the first cigarette most people smoke tastes very unpleasant, as smoking is not a natural thing for your body after awhile and more smoking, smokers become used to the burning sensation and explain that they enjoy the feeling of smoking. Some smokers state that it makes them feel more confident, or they like the feeling of the cigarette in their hands. One in every three people that smoke says that they didn’t mean to carry on smoking (Pete Sanders). People begin smoking for many different reasons: curiosity, to rebel, fitting in and because of their parents, all these factors are all known as a pressure, some being more pressuring than others dependent on the person. Some people start and regret starting because they did not realise that the nicotine in cigarettes was so hard to give up. Some smokers think they'll put on weight if they stop smoking. Cigarettes don't actually keep your body weight down and they can even cause cellulite (Deposits of fat and other material trapped in pockets beneath the skin.). Some people replace cigarettes with food when they give up therefore may put on a few pounds (Bathroom Index).
What are the government doing?
Some MPs are have succeeded within their rights to ban smoking in all public places in England from summer 2007 this will show a large decrease of smokers around 600,000 smokers over the next decade due to this government policy ban that is being put in place. (NCJ Media Limited). Wondering why the government hasn’t banned smoking altogether? - This is a common thought by a typical person in the UK like me or you. This is because if it is banned people may go to extreme lengths and would probably break the law to getting hold of tobacco, the government in the UK has used large warning signs on the packets of cigarettes stating the dangers to try of prevent them and off put them from smoking. Some governments however have now prevented smoking adverts on televisions and elsewhere, replacing them with other adverts that show the dangers of smoking. Because of the ban of direct advertising, now cigarette companies use more indirect advertising as a way of getting to the audiences, such as sponsoring sports that are featured on television. All over the world governments make a lot of money from taxes on cigarettes, three quarters of the price of a packet of cigarettes is tax (Pete Sanders and Steve Myers) this goes to the government, these amounts of money is such a large figure that they have come to rely on this money they receive. This high taxation also just increases the smuggling of cigarettes; tobacco companies argue that tax rates should be lower to fight smuggling. Banning smoking all together could have an direct effect on the tobacco companies that use the countries such as: Africa, Asia and South America to grow the tobacco, recently there has been a decline in smokers this means that some people, both factory and growers have lost their jobs, leaving them and their families struggling for money and other things that money is used for, like food and healthcare. The other issues upon the government taxation system upon cigarettes are that tobacco is taxation upon the poor. Over 70% of two-parent households on Income Support buy cigarettes, spending 15% of their disposable income. 38% of those in “unskilled manual” occupations smoke compared with only 11% in “professional” jobs. (Ash). Smokers already pay more tax than it costs to treat smoking on the NHS. Tobacco taxation raises revenue of £9.5bn (Customs & Excise) compared with the £1.7bn needed to treat smoking-related illness (Parrott, S et al). However, this comparison is not particularly valid. Tobacco tax is not intended to be a down-payment of the cost to the NHS of dealing with smoking-related illness. There are two main reasons why UK taxes on tobacco are relatively high: a price incentive to persuade people to give up, and to raise taxes from a source which has relatively little effect on the economy.
Passive Smoking
Breathing in other people's smoke is called passive smoking. This can cause headaches and lack of concentration. Each year around 17,000 kids under the age of 5 go into hospital with complaints caused by smoke from their parents' cigarettes (Bathroom Index). This is made up of "sidestream" smoke from the burning tip of the cigarette, and "mainstream" smoke that has been inhaled and then exhaled by the smoker. Sidestream smoke accounts for nearly 85% of the smoke in a room (SCOTH). Tobacco smoke contains over 4000 chemicals in the form of particles and gases. The particulate phase includes tar, nicotine, benzene and benzo(a)pyrene. When other people breathe in others smoke, it can cause eye irritation, headache, coughing, sore throat, dizziness and nausea, this isn’t a great way to make friends. Non-smokers who are exposed to passive smoking in the home, have a 25% increased risk of heart disease and lung cancer. (SCOTH)
Pregnancy during smoking
As most smokers know, that it is difficult to give up smoking, especially when they become pregnant, some mothers still find it hard to quit completely, so still often smoke, this can unfortunately damage the baby it can increase the chance of the baby being abnormal compared to other babies and develop an unhealthy placenta. As most people know babies can be born prematurely, this is twice as likely to happen if the mother smokes and then three times more likely to be underweight at birth, even if the baby is born on time. In other extremely unfortunate events it is actually more likely that babies are to suddenly die in the first year of its life, this is commonly known as infant mortality. (Baby World) All this because of the mother having a terrible habit and basically not caring for her child. The father, or friends can also be to blame to sometimes cause these problems, due to passive smoking, as I mentioned earlier in this essay, they can become a problem to the child and even the child.
Smoking is more harmful than you think
But just the health part of cigarettes isn’t just the only waste of money that cigarettes are typically not useful for, many fires in the home are caused by cigarettes, now smoking is not allowed in underground railways because cigarettes have lead to dangerous fires, also lots of forest fires and field fires that is due to someone carelessly not putting out a cigarette, so over £4.00 to help you cause a fire in your home? Yes that will proceed to be expensive. Cigarette smoke can also make offices, homes and public places become dirtier more quickly, meaning more time and money is needed to be put in place to be cleaned; as in today’s world: time is now money, I typical example of fires in public places from smoking is the fire in Kings Cross station, in the London underground, In total, 31 people died and more than 60 received injuries ranging from severe burns to smoke inhalation. (Kings Cross)
Summary
Cigarettes contain tobacco, and this tobacco contains nicotine, an addictive stimulant which temporarily improves alertness, memory, and mood, but also forms a strong physical and psychological chemical dependence and this is the addiction to the smoker, if this chemical was not originally included in cigarettes then I believe that there would be a very small amount of smokers, but because of this addicting stimulant people are forced mentally, to smoke.
Basically spending £1456 a year on: burning your house down, destroying forests, polluting your public areas, increasing cleaning efforts, putting yourself at risk for cancer and heart attacks, damaging your lungs and dangerously making your health decline and get worse, this is at all NOT worth the amount that smokers currently spend on smoking, the government are doing as much good as they are bad, with the current amount they are gaining for taxes upon cigarettes, they are losing much more on healthcare to treat such cases related to smoking and with them keeping these taxes in place, means keeping the sale of cigarettes in place at the moment, with the public smoking ban and non direct smoking advertisement in place probably does has an effect. Asking a smoker what is the best trick to give up smoking will probably reply with “The trick is not to start in the first place; it is such a waste of money”. At least I now know I defiantly won’t be smoking during my lifetime! After about 50 years of smoking a smoker would have wasted enough money to buy a small house (Bathroom Index).
