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Jose A. Chavez

Katia Monterrey

ENGL 5-74

11 July 2021

Research Essay Draft

An issue I see a lot in my community is the addiction of using tobacco products.

Approximately more than four hundred eighty thousand individuals pass away each year due to

smoking or in some cases second hand smoking. The tobacco product that I will be mainly

focusing on and talking about is cigarettes, which is the most common type of product used in

the US. I have read many articles that have come up with solutions to get rid of smoking or lower

the death toll caused by it and I have wanted to share some of my thoughts on the topic and even

provide a solution. There have been many programs created to teach the youth the negative

effects that come with using cigarettes and also programs to help people who might have gotten

out of the habit of smoking and need help but, the death toll has never really changed, so is there

any easy way we can solve this issue?

When doing research on the topic, I found that there were many groups of people that

wanted change and had the same view as I did on the issue. For example there is WHO (world

health organization), and also a popular group part of the CDC which is called OSH (Office of

Smoking and Health) . We had common interests and common reasons for why we cared about

finding solutions and most were based off of how we saw the damage that cigarettes caused to

humans and the financial problems that came with it. With knowing the cost of all treatments
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done to help smokers, there is no possibility that anyone would agree that someone should go

through that financial problem. It is estimated that more than two hundred billion dollars are used

to treat people with damages caused by cigarettes and some one has to pay for those treatments

and that usually is the family of the patient and the health care cost is not cheap. Something else

that is not cheap would be the amount of tobacco products that people buy which on average is

about two hundred eighty dollars a week which can total to be around more than ten thousand

dollars a year. Smoking does not just affect the person doing it, it also affects anyone nearby and

also people who take care of them who have to cover their expenses. Issues like this can be

prevented by finding help for people with an addiction and helping people stay away from

dangerous products like cigarettes.

It is not clearly understandable why people start to use cigarettes. Some say it is to relieve

pain or stress, or for pleasure, or for doing it just because. Some occasions, people do it only at

social encounters when others are doing it as well. The only real benefit of smoking would be

that smoking helps prevent cartilage and joint deterioration. That is the only researched benefit

that someone would get when they smoke and that does not even compare to all the benefits you

would get if you do not smoke at all. Some benefits would be the prevention of fatal diseases

such as pneumonia, emphysema and lung cancer. Smoking causes about eighty four percent of

deaths from lung cancer and eighty three percent of deaths from chronic obstructive pulmonary

disease. Not smoking prevents so many diseases from entering your body. For example, just

recently, it was said that smoking could cause the symptoms of Covid-19 to be worse in the

patients who smoked due to their respiratory system already having an issue with having smoke

in the patient's lungs due to smoking tobacco products.. But it is not only the respiratory system
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affected by smoking, it also includes the heart, blood vessels, the eyes, mouth, reproductive

organs, bones, bladder, and digestive organs. This means that lung cancer is not the only cancer

that some one can get from using cigarettes, oral cancer and liver cancer are the most common

forms. Honestly, the list goes on and on for the benefits of not smoking but people still decide to

continue and researchers have no idea why but it does not mean that people do not need help

quitting or that it can not be prevented.

Some solutions to solve this issue would be to create more programs and presentations

that could help teach the youth the dangers of smoking cigarettes so they can stay away from

those products and not have the urge to use them. These programs would be introduced into

schools where it can most easily access kids and also most benefit the kids. The way it would be

made possible would be through either private funding or government funding given to the

school so they can set up the programs. There are a lot of small but major actions that can be

done to help lower the use of cigarettes, for example, by raising the sales tax on cigarettes which

can lead people to think twice before purchasing such an expensive item. Another example

would be to limit or lower the amount of advertisements that are shown so the temptation of

purchasing or considering using cigarettes can be lower. There are many ways to prevent people

from smoking, but what about the people who have been smoking and want to leave the habit of

using it? One solution would be to create more rehab centers or create more rehab programs that

can reach out and help individuals with this addiction and possibly save lives. These solutions

have all been put into play before and it seems that it has worked over the years because the use

of cigarettes has lowered over the past sixteen years with about a seven percent difference based
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on every one hundred Americans. That does not change the lethal percentage cigarettes have but

it does lower the number of people who may be affected by the use of cigarettes.

A very extensive and difficult solution would be to pass a bill and get a ban on the

production and sale of cigarettes. It would have a huge impact on everyone because it would

cause tobacco companies to shut down which also means unemployment for some. A major

change would be health care costs which would be significantly lower and also the death toll for

smokers would lower as well. Another impact it would have would be that second hand smoking

would not be a problem and that would also change the legislature for smoke free zones because

they would serve no use anymore due to the ban. The way that this ban would even happen

would have to be by creating a bill which then goes on to be a law, that bans the use of cigarettes.

This idea or the very beginning of the bill would start off with a group of people with similar

ideas which then find a representative to present their bill to the house of representatives, which

then goes to a committee then goes through the whole process that any other bill would go

through. After it gets accepted and signed upon, the way this law would be enforced would be by

using law enforcement to enforce this new law and monitor any illegal action. This would also

mean that tobacco companies will shut down and stop production which would be like cutting

the roots off a plant and stopping this epidemic at its source. Some major complications would

include the removal of the entire product off the market and also enforcing the new law would be

a challenge because it would not be simple. Another complication would be convincing congress

and federal candidates that would be against the bill due to the revenue that tobacco companies

make which is around eight billion two hundred million dollars. Other places or people who

would not benefit from this bill would be bars and casinos whose main customers would be
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smokers. But with that much revenue being brought in, who wouldn’t want to receive a part of

that money when all you have to do is deny accepting a bill similar to the one that was

presented? There are many small solutions that can reduce the use of cigarettes but to make it

extinct would be nearly impossible.

After looking at some of the solutions, are there any legitimate and easy solutions that

someone could do to either prevent or help someone stay away from cigarettes? The answer is,

of course not. A difficult issue like this does not have an easy solution, it would take a lot of

time, money and effort for rehab programs to take action in helping others and that would go for

youth programs as well. Creating a law to ban the use of cigarettes seems far from reality and it

truly is but as long as there are people who are willing to help others, the idea of banning

cigarettes seems less impossible to accomplish.