Smoking Research Paper

Should Cigarette Smoking Be Illegal?

It kills more than 440,000 Americans every single year. It will take over thirteen years off of the average human life span. It costs the United States an estimated 157 billion dollars a year (Whitehead). It has been proven time and time again to directly cause numerous life-threatening diseases. So, knowing these shocking statistics, why would such a terrible thing be legal? Cigarette smoking is an obviously horrible habit that results in nothing but disastrous health consequences. However, cigarette smoking remains completely legal and is sometimes even encouraged. Cigarette smoking should be deemed illegal in order to obliterate the devastating consequences inflicted upon the smoker, significantly decrease the detrimental health threats imposed upon society, and drastically improve political and economical dependency world-wide.

Most people are aware that cigarette smoking is bad for one’s health, though many seem to ignore this fact. However, what most people have yet to realize is to what degree cigarette smoking can forever alter a person’s health. Smoking has been scientifically proven to cause diseases such as emphysema, chronic bronchitis, cardiovascular disease, and lung cancer, among various other cancers. Cigarette smoking negatively affects almost every organ of the human body (Lukachko). In fact, the U.S. Department of Justice states that cigarette smoking is “the single leading cause of preventable death in the United States” (Hudson 10). Nevertheless, because of either people’s blatant disregard for these health threats or lack of substantial knowledge, over twenty percent of the adult population continues to smoke regularly (Current). Therefore, in order to essentially relieve society of these imposing health dangers, cigarette smoking must to be banned. If this happens, the number of smokers will greatly decrease, which in turn will help break the cycle of deadly diseases caused by cigarette smoking. Various...