a case study on smoking and it's effects

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Introduction

My essay is about why smoking is bad for you and should it have been banned in public places? Smoking is the single largest cause of cancer in the UK. It causes 9 out of 10 cases of lung cancer and is also a big risk factor cancer of the bladder, kidney, mouth and many more. I am going to look at the effects of smoking and also looking at whether it should it have been banned in public places.

Page One – History Of Smoking

Page Two – Why is it bad for you?

Page Three – Why is it bad for you cont. (science)

Page Four -  Passive Smoking What is it? What Problems Does It Cause?

Page Five –  probs of smoking.

Page Six – Smoking in public places

Page Eight – For smoking in public places

Page Nine – Aganst smoking in public places

Page Ten – Evaluation of the two arguments

Page Eleven – My Opinion

Page Twelve – Bibliography and Reliability of Sources.

Page Thirteen – Bibliography cont.

Only 11 pages Sort it out in the morning!!

History Of Smoking (using source 15)

Smoking has been around for centuries, and this is one of the main reasons smoking is still so popular today. The first record of smoking is from 600AD where pictures of tobacco being smoked has been found on Guatemalan pottery. However historians believe that before that tobacco was first used by the native Americans, in which they used smoked tobacco for medicine and cerimonies.

When Christopher Columbus went to America in 1492 he brought tobacco leaves and seeds with him back to Europe. However in the same year, the spanish explorers Jerez and Luis de Torres are credited with first observing smoking. Jerez becomes a smoker and then takes the habit back to Spain, where, the popularity of Smoking grew.

Then from 1492, people in Europe began to cultivate tobacco, firstly in Santo Domingo and later on in countries like Brazil. Even with all of this cultivation, most people didn’t get a taste of tobacco until the the mid 16th century.

In 1560, a French ambassador called Jean Nicot de Villmain writes about the many medicinal uses of tobacco. This is the origin of why people thought smoking was good for them and this myth is the a part of the reason for smoking being so popular thorough out the ages. This is continued in 1577 when smoking tobacco was recommended for toothache, falling fingernails, worms, hailtosis, lockjaw and cancer. This is quite ironic as we now know that smoking is responsible for up to 90% of cancer patients.

Phycians in the early 17th century are upset that tobacco is being used without a prescriptian. However King James I, said that the nearest resembling to smoking was “the horrible stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.” Shortly before that the Pope banned smoking in all holy places. In 1610 Sir Francis Bacon writes the tobacoo use is increasing and it is a hard custom to quit. This view was not shared by everyone and the Royal College of Physicians dismissed these view on smoking.

This view continues through the centuries as in the First World War cigarettes are included in Army rations to calm soldiers down. Just after the war, smoking was then targeted at women as before then, for a woman to smoke would be immoral saying “Has smoking any more to do with a woman’s morals than has the colour of her hair.” Other such slogans were targeted at woman such as “Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet.” With women smoking as well as men, in the 1930s Britain had the highest lung cancer rate in the world.

Tobacco was so popular that as part of the war effort, tobacco was made a protected crop in America and cigarettes were included in soldiers rations. Tobacco companies sent millions of free cigarettes to troops. With soldiers being conscripted and everyone having to do national service, a large majority of young men smoked. This meant that the soldiers influenced their children to smoke as children copied their parents to make themselves feel more valued againt the war heroes.

In the long run generations were influenced into smoking, this partially explains the abundance of smokers regardless of the now known medical effects.

Why Is It Bad For You?

Smoking causes 1 in 5 deaths in the United States and is responsible for about 90% of cancer in women and about 80% in men. Smoking also causes an array of other diseases some of which are of the bladder, oral cavity, pharynx (voice box), larynx, esophagus, cervix, kidney, lung, pancreas, and stomach, and is also known to cause acute myeloid leukemia. More deaths are caused each year by tobacco use than by all deaths from human immunodeficiency virus, also known as HIV which is one of the main probems todays society is faced with.

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So the main question is if people know how bad smoking is for them: why do they smoke? This is because smoking is highly addictive which is due to the deadly cocktail cigarettes are made of.

Cigarettes contain tar, nicotine, carbon monoxide and many other drugs harmful to your health. Nicotine isn’t directly harmful to your system however it is highly addictive and fast acting and gets to the brain 15 seconds after it Is inhaled. Carbon Monoxide is a tasteless, colourless and odourless gas that, when inhaled, is very harmful to the human body. This is ...

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