Secondhand Smoke Kills : Should Smoking Be Banned?

Secondhand smoke is a volatile air pollutant that poses health risks for anyone nearby. It places children at risk for developing issues like asthma, ear and respiratory infections, and even cancer, while increasing the more obvious risks of cancer, heart disease, and stroke for the smoker.

There are approximately six hundred ingredients in cigarettes, when burned a chemical reaction occurs and they release more than seven thousand chemicals. At least sixty-nine of the chemicals have been proven to cause cancer, and most are poisonous. Cigarettes are composed of nicotine, carbon dioxide, irritants, and tars as wells as formaldehyde, arsenic, and DDT. If a human person ate one pack of cigarettes, they would be instantly killed. Furthermore, there are enough of these poisonous chemicals that

Cigarettes now a days have a many different chemicals in them. A 100 years ago cigarettes only had tobacco in them which made them less harmless. Now there are 4,000 chemicals put into cigarettes. There are 43 known cancer causing compounds and over 400 toxins (quit smoking support). That's why smoking cigarettes leads many Americans to getting cancer.

There are approximately 4,000-7,000 chemicals in cigarette smoke. Chemicals included are: nicotine, tar, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, ammonia, hydrogen cyanide, arsenic, acetone, benzene, butane, Cadmium and DDT. The chemicals previously listed are typically found within nail polish remover, hair dye, rat poison, rubber cement, active ingredients in battery acid, embalming fluid, and materials for paving roads. Forty-three of the chemicals within a cigarette are known cancer-causing compounds, and over 400 other toxins. In addition, depending on the type of cigarette that is smoked, the effects could be even more harmful to one’s body by containing more additives and chemicals than others (Kleinman, L., M.D., & D. M., M.P.H., 2016).

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

Unfortunately, it seems that people not only risk their life with every cigarette they smoke, but also affect everybody else who is around. Everybody can be affected by second-hand smoke.

Secondhand smoking cause many defects for children as they grow up. As parents of young children smoke in the car, these children are exposed to this secondhand smoke frequently. According to Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), "Secondhand smoke causes numerous health problems in infants and children, including more frequent and severe asthma attacks, respiratory infections, ear infection, and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)." As these children group up, the health problems resulting from the secondhand smoke exposure affects their lifestyle and future.

Smoking also causes some serious respiratory diseases. Emphysema is a disease that robs a person of their ability to breathe. This disease is terminal and it kills you. It destroys a little bit of your lungs at a time so you don’t even realize there is problem. Patients who have emphysema can survive for many years with the help of oxygen tanks and special breathing exercises. Everyday activities, like shopping, cleaning, or exercising are some things that you can’t do in the later stages of emphysema. Elaine Landau says in her book “Cigarettes” that one cigarette lessens a smokers life by 7 minutes. Overall smoking is very dangerous a deadly it causes over 300,000 deaths a year in the United States. So if you’re ever offered one just remember how dangerous it is even if it only lessens your life by 7 minutes. However you don’t have to smoke to be harmed by cigarette. This leads us to the effects of secondhand smoke. Inhaling smoke from others is called passive smoking.

Secondhand smoke causes a wide range of adverse health affects to those who are submitted to it on a regular basis, including lung cancer, asthma, and respiratory infections.

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.

When people smoke in public, their cigarettes give off harmful fumes that are harmful to anyone else around them. This is labeled as secondhand smoke. Lung disease, heart disease, bronchitis and asthma are some of the most common damaging

As a carcinogen, tobacco smoke ranks alongside other cancer causing agents such as asbestos, arsenic, benzene and radon gas. Tobacco smoke is full of carbon monoxide. This is a poisonous gas that inhibits the transportation of oxygen to the body's vital organs.

When you take the risk to smoke, do you really know what you’re putting into your body? There are many poisons found in cigarettes, including hydrogen cyanide, arsenic, acetone, DDT, and carbon monoxide, along with other harmful chemicals like tar, mercury, and lead.

smokers may not realize how secondhand smoke is very dangerous and life threatening. Although the person may not be the one actually smoking their still inhaling the smoke which is what second hand smoke is. It is something that in most cases for younger children are unintentionally, but happens anyway. Since second hand smoke is a known cancer causing agent the more secondhand smokers the higher the risks for more health issues. Not only does smoking affect the main stream, but the side stream as well which the both of them are slowly wearing their lungs and other body parts down.

The simple smoke from a cigarette is more complex then it really looks. "Each time a person breaths in smoke about a million particles of very tiny complex materials are breathed in and only 20% of that is breathed out."(Hyde 1990) From these little millions of particles is the reason it causes problems for the human body. The main material in the some is nicotine. "Nicotine is an alkaloid poison found in