Tobacco Regulation
By Damian Kosakowski
Should Tobacco be regulated more heavily?
Tobacco needs to be much more regulated because of the many risks that it poises. Many high school students are putting their health at risk when they choose to begin smoking, many health problems are strongly associated with smoking, and electronic cigarettes are ploys to get younger teenagers to start smoking and get addicted.
High school students are trending toward smoking
Roughly 3,300 teens try their first cigarette every day and 700-800 get addicted. That's 300,000 new smokers that the tobacco industry gains every year, and most of them haven't even graduated or can drive a car yet. The tobacco problem for teens in the U.S. has truly gotten out of hand with all of the health problem that addiction can cause. The worst part about it is that we know about all these health risks but some teens still choose to begin smoking. The media is one of the main causes for this. Teens look at the magazine ads and electronic cigarette commercials and think that smoking is the cool thing to do when the guy in the ad is smoking his cigarette in a nice black suit with a beautiful girl next to him. The media glorifies smoking way to much and gets into teenagers heads. These ads need to be gotten rid of if we want the teens of America to grow up and live healthy lives. Tobacco needs to be thought of as a dirty, unhealthy thing to do if we want our teens to grow up well and this regulation will truly benefit us very much.
Smoking can cause many health problems
There is a reason why cigarettes are also known as cancer sticks, and its pretty self explanatory. Cigarettes are scientifically proven to cause many health problems that can damage our bodies terribly. Approximately 160,000 people die each year from lung cancer and 85% of these deaths are due to smoking. It's not just a coincidence that these people who smoke get lung cancer and die. Cigarettes are killing people every single day and there is only one way to stop it. A dead person is not a good person and if these cigarettes were much more regulated then it would be much harder for the tobacco industry to gain more zombies to buy their products. We need to stop it at the source and all we have to do is raise the buying age or truly show people the dangers that smoking poses before they go and try it. With these regulations, we can actually begin to save peoples lives.
"Safer" alternatives to smoking are just as dangerous.
If you turn on your TV today, I will almost assure you that you will see at least one electronic cigarette commercial promoting how their product is "safer" than regular smoking. The commercials statements may be true, as E-cigs do have much less chemicals and carcinogens that normal cigarettes possess, but the real reason why the big tobacco companies such Lorrilard (owner of the very popular blu e-cigs) make electronic cigarettes is not to insure safety for their valuable customers. In fact, electronic cigarettes aren't even made for current smokers, but they are made for smokers who haven't even had their first puff yet. Electronic cigarettes are being made in many tasty flavors such as green apple and blueberry, which are also flavors of the very popular jolly rancher candy. But I thought jolly ranchers are supposed to be for kids that want something sweet and smoking is supposed to be for adults? Well then why do the they taste the same? The answer is simple, the tobacco companies want to get kids, teens, or never before smokers to try something that they think is safe and get addicted to nicotine in that way. Then they will crave the nicotine and become full time smokers. That is the plan for these big tobacco companies and this needs to be stopped. Tobacco needs to be seen as dangerous in any way, shape, or form. A way to begin this is to regulate tobacco much more heavily.
Work cited pages
Alcindor, Yamiche. "E-Cigarette Bans Considered Across the Country." Gannett News Service. 20 Dec. 2013: N.p. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 31 Jan. 2014.
Brady, Dennis. "FDA's Anti-Smoking Campaign to Target Teens." Washington Post2013 dec 10: A.3. Web. 3 Feb. 2014. <http://sks.sirs.com>.
ProQuest Staff. "At Issue: Tobacco Regulation." ProQuest LLC. 2014: N.pag. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 03 Feb. 2014.
"Smoking." - National Cancer Institute. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Feb. 2014.