A Smoke-Free World

If Britain alone can bring this many deaths from smoking, then how many people die in total around the world? This can be stopped. However, we are just not taking enough action to prevent smoking. Smoking has many negative effects on smokers and the environment around them. Smoking has many impacts on health in all smokers, especially women. It is a disaster to the environment. Moreover, secondhand smoke affects non-smokers. Smokers must be stopped. We must provoke everyone to help in the effort prevent smoking.

To begin with, women should stop smoking because they have more health risks than men do. Women have a higher risk of getting many types of cancer.1 If they smoke within five years of puberty, they have a higher risk of developing breast cancer. This is because during puberty, their breasts are still developing, so there is a higher risk of developing a cancer cell. Women are also more vulnerable to lung cancer. In addition, if a woman smokes during pregnancy, the baby is more likely to have health problems.2 There may be congenital heart defects due to early exposure to tobacco. This can cause heart failure and causes a rapid heart rate as the baby grows. If a women smokes during her pregnancy, there is also the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Through my experience, I know that no mother in her right of mind wants to lose her baby. Smoking also has many health risks.

Furthermore, smoking has a very large impact on the health of the smoker. Smoking causes many cardiovascular diseases. Smoking narrows blood vessels, which causes stroke and heart attacks. When people smoke, there is a high chance of getting atherosclerosis.3 This makes the smoker more likely to get heart disease, and makes the smoker feel excited, which is one of the reasons they keep on smoking. There are also many lung diseases associated with smoking. Carbon monoxide is inhaled when people smoke. This replaces oxygen, which robs the organs of oxygen. Because of this, the lungs are forced to work harder to give out oxygen. Carbon Monoxide is toxic to the lungs. Also, inside the cigarette is tar that creates mucus. That is why smokers always cough. The mucus from tar also destroys the alveoli inside the lungs. The tar also paralyzes the cilia. This disables the lung’s ability to clean out dust and mucus. Lung cancer is caused by the many chemicals inside a cigarette. These mutate the cells in the lungs. Another health impact of smoking is oral diseases. When people are chain smokers, they have a high chance of getting oral cancer. Every day, they inhale more tar. This causes a smoker’s teeth to have problems. These include having yellow teeth and losing teeth. Everyone who smokes has bad breath. In addition, smoking also pollutes the environment.

Moreover, cigarettes have a large impact on the environment. Almost all smokers litter cigarette butts. The one billion and two hundred million smokers around the world drop at least one cigarette butt every day. This is much worse than litter. The nicotine in just two hundred of the filters is enough to kill a human. Not only can filters kill a human but they are also biodegradable. When the filters finally decompose all the chemicals comes out and pollutes the air. When the rain washes the butts down a gutter, the fish eat it. Then, the fish consume the chemicals. The fish will get eaten, and then the chemicals will be passed along through the food chain. Cigarettes also cause air pollution. Three cigarettes cause more air pollution than a diesel car’s exhaust. If we did not have cigarettes, then we would not have this problem. This also makes people breathe secondhand smoke.

Secondhand smoke is one of the worst effects of smoking. It is what nobody wants, but if someone is around a smoker or smokers, they will breathe it in. Dementia in adults is one of the effects from secondhand smoke. It is just one of the other cognitive impairments.4 that result from secondhand smoke. Patients in the English Longitudal Study with high levels of cotinine in their saliva had a forty-four percent chance higher of having dementia. Smoking disrupts the way in which our blood vessels carry blood to our brain. Generally, the more cotinine in the saliva samples, the more risk for any kind of cognitive impairment. The more people breathe in secondhand smoke, the more likely people are to become depressed. People who have encountered high levels of secondhand smoke have many hormones that have been found to link to anxiety. On top of all this, secondhand smokers have all the same risks as a normal smoker. However, these effects are reduced, because most of the smoke has been filtered through the smoker’s lungs. They have an increased risk of cancer, because of the carcinogens that are there no matter what. However, some people think that secondhand smoke does not make a big difference.

Some people may say that the effects of secondhand smoke are exaggerated. They say that people link too many cancer infections and deaths to secondhand smoke. There are actually a lot less people that die due to secondhand smoke. Also, the health risks are a lot less harmful to non-smokers; the Surgeon General is exaggerating the effects. This may be true; however, people are still dying and becoming ill due to secondhand smoke, so this is still a big problem. The health risks are still there, no matter what people say. But it is true that the smokers have the most risk. There is also a solution for present-day smokers.

For all presently smokers, there is a solution. You can stop smoking. One way to stop is to keep on saying discouraging thoughts. These can include saying all the ways you can die, how torturous it is to keep smoking, and the horrid black lungs you can get it. One woman was a chain-smoker since she was thirteen-years old. One day, a hole broke through her throat due to cancer.5 She couldn’t eat or drink, because whatever she tried to eat or drink just fell out. Do you smokers really want this to happen to you? Also, people should not use substitutes for nicotine. Most smokers just cannot take it because it is not like smoking, and then they just keep on smoking while using substitutes. If we had a smoke-free world, a lot of people would be happier.

If we had a smoke-free world, the world would be a better place. We must stop women who are smokers, prevent all the health risks of smoking by stopping cigarette companies, save the environment from smoking, save people from secondhand smoke, and show current smokers a solution. Would anyone actually want to go through these health risks? The torture breathing smoke, the pain in your mouth, and the misshapen teeth all come with smoking. No one would want to look that horrid. You would have many ways of dying, all painful. People should all help prevent smoking. If this happened, there would be less air pollution, less environmental problems, and less people in the hospital. The world would be a better place. One smoker, Chrissie J, who stopped smoking said, “I know that NOTHING now will make me go back to smoking. It’s so nice to be FREE, breathe properly, and not be a slave.” Other drugs which cause similar problems include marijuana and cocaine. All drugs must be prevented. As a final warning, do not smoke.

1 All people have different levels of sensitivity to the effects of smoking. It is part of a person’s genes.

2 This is caused by the baby’s vulnerability to mutations.

3 Atherosclerosis is a disease where the arteries start to become stiff and harden. Originally, the arteries are supposed to be very flexible.

4 Cognitive impairment is an impairment of the brain.

5 Through throat cancer, this woman had to smoke through a hole in her throat. Even now, she still has a hole in her throat and still smokes.