Essay Four Rough Draft

Tobacco should be Banned Just like Other Drugs

Picture the five people in your life who are closest to you.  It could be your Father, Mother, Grandparents, Siblings or even you.  According to my sources one out of every five adults in the United States is a smoker. This means there is a good chance one of them is risking their health by smoking Tobacco products.  By smoking these Tobacco products your loved ones is greatly multiplying their chances of heart disease, stroke, lung cancer, and many other cancers (“Centers for Disease Control and Prevention”).

Smoking is a very expensive habit; people who use Tobacco products spend to $1,826.21 on average a year on them not including the extra cost of living it causes. Smoking is a health hazard for both smokers and non-smokers. Smokers should have the right to choose to smoke a ruin their health but they should respect non-smokers.  A lot of Smokers’ say that it helps them relax and relieves their stress, or even that it helps them focus at work, but the negative effects of smoking are way greater than the positive(“Quit Smoking Support”). Many people believe that there are good and bad outcomes from smoking. Many people think that smoking is a sign of coolness but in fact it damages the body. Tobacco products contain nicotine which is an addictive substance and that is why it is so difficult to quit after you have already started smoking. Smoking damages the lungs, heart, and causes other diseases. The most important reason to ban smoking is the effects on smokers and the innocent people who end up inhaling second hand smoke. An estimated 443,000 or one out of every five deaths in America are from diseases caused by cigarette smoking. I believe that smoking is just as bad as other drugs if not worse than some and it should defiantly be banned.
          Smoking Tobacco products causes more deaths than AIDS, illegal drug use, alcohol abuse, motor vehicle injuries, suicides, and murders all added up (“Centers for Disease Control and Prevention”).  This is a huge reason why smoking should be illegal.  If this drug is responsible for 443,000 fatalities every year, there is no reason why it should be a legal substance to use (“Centers for Disease Control and Prevention”).  To understand this issue we first have to look at the statistics.   Smoking still remains to be the leading preventable cause of premature deaths in the United States (“MMWR”).  If these deaths can be prevented I feel like it is necessary for this drug to be illegal so people’s lives can be saved.  It has been proven that secondhand smoke increases a person’s risk of lung cancer and heart disease (“Kaufman”).  In a report by U.S. Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona states that “Secondhand smoke is not a mere annoyance. It is a serious health hazard that can lead to disease and premature death in children and nonsmoking adults." This means innocent people have to suffer a disease even death because people are smoking tobacco products around them.   When something is as harmful to people as tobacco products it is hard to believe it is allowed under the law to be sold to and used by people.  Also if somebody is a smoker they are more likely to become infertile.  Why should we let people do something that could ruin their chance of every having children of their own.  When tobacco products are responsible for the premature deaths of hundreds of thousands of people it should not be allowed under the law.

The government spends about ninety six billion dollars every year on smoking related Medicaid, Medicare and other healthcare payments (“TOLL OF TOBACCO”).  This means that taxpayers are the ones paying for these expenditures, every year a household pays six hundred and sixteen dollars in taxes to cover these smoking related costs.  It is unfair to the people of America that we have to pay for somebody to ruin their health. The average smoker individually spends around one thousand eight hundred and twenty six dollars on cigarettes a year. But the truth is the cost of cigarettes is just one of the many costs that come with smoking on top of this these people have to pay extra for their life insurance, health insurance,  car insurance,  dental care, and their home and car resale value (“The Cost”). When all of these payments go up and their property value goes down the quality of living has to go down by a good amount. Smoking tobacco should be illegal because it not only ruins a person’s life expectancy it also lowers their life quality. 

When you compare tobacco products to illegal drugs such as marijuana it is almost stupid to let it is a legal substance. Marijuana is one of the most abused drugs in America today causing eight hundred thousand arrests every year.  Donald Tashkin of the University of California at Los Angeles did a study that has shown that marijuana, no matter how often you smoke it, does not cause lung cancer.  So if tobacco seems to cause a more deadly disease than this illegal drug I do not understand why it is legal.  Nicotine, the addictive chemical in tobacco, has been proven to be just as addictive as heroin and crack (“Researchers Believe”).   These two illegal drugs have very addictive qualities and for nicotine to be more addictive than they are it is truly puzzling why tobacco products are still legal.  When compared to other drugs tobacco seems to be the same if not worse for you, this is why it would make sense for it to become an illegal substance also.

Even though there are so many reasons why tobacco should be illegal there are also some good points that people who want this drug to stay legal make.  I think the best point that they make is if tobacco became illegal thousands of tobacco farmers would either be out of a job or keep growing the tobacco illegally (“Nadelmann”).  If this were to happen crime rates would go up dramatically with people illegally selling, buying and growing tobacco.  With these crimes going up there will be territorial battles and murders over the addicting illegal crop (“Nadelmann”).  Another reason that is made in favor of keeping tobacco legal is a lot of smokers’ say that it is a good way to help them to relax and relieve their stress, or even that it helps them focus at work.  But even with all of these reasons for it to stay legal the negatives that come with tobacco are way more devastating than the things that could happen if it becomes an illegal substance.

Tobacco should be an illegal substance just like the other illegal drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, and heroin.  It causes one out of every five deaths in the United States, which are more than all illegal drug deaths out together.  It causes cancer, heart problems, and even other diseases.  And if hurting yourself by smoking isn’t bad enough by doing it around other people you could be multiplying their risk of these diseases also.  Another reason why it should be made illegal is because of the money spent by the government, every year around ninety six billion are spent on smoking related healthcare payments.  Lastly when tobacco is compared to illegal drugs it is shown to be just as harmful if not more deadly.