Smoking

Does one have the right to smoke in a restaurant

Enrique Torres, Nora Khairy, Richard Hamilton

COMM/215

February 24, 2014

Professor Mark Preston

Does one have the right to smoke in a restaurant

With todays crowd smoking has become very common and fashionable, especially with the younger generation. Although some people find smoking fashionable smoking can be very harmful for a person’s health and can be the leading cause to many serious health issues. The effects of smoking are common and dangerous but most people do not realize that second hand smoke is just as bad. Smoking within an establishment can greatly increase a person’s chance of health problems. Smoking in a restaurant should be prohibited because secondhand smoke endangers the health of non-smokers.

Due to smoking there are many complex health issues that may occur. According to Dr. Maisie (2012) “Cigarette smoking is one of the major risk factors for hypertension and fatal heart attack. The chemicals in the smoke develop atherosclerosis and lower supply of oxygen to the heart leading to cardiovascular diseases.” Cigarette smoke contains over 4,800 chemicals, 69 of which are known to cause cancer. Smoking is directly responsible for approximately 90 percent of lung cancer deaths. Smoking also causes more deaths each year than HIV, alcohol, firearm related incidents, motor vehicle injuries, and alcohol combined.

Also, secondhand smoke is not just a mere annoyance, but also a serious health hazard that causes premature death and dieses in children and nonsmoking adults. “Secondhand smoke causes approximately 3,400 lung cancer deaths and 46,000 heart disease deaths in adult nonsmokers in the United States each year” (New York Daily News 2014). According to the New York Daily News (2014) “The current Surgeon General's Report concluded that scientific evidence indicates that there is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke. Short exposures can cause blood platelets to become stickier,...