Smoking in Public Places

Smoking

Smoking is a topic I feel strongly about. Not only is it a nasty habit but it is also harmful to your health. Smoking in public places should not be allowed because it is inconsiderate to those who want to lead a healthy life.

Here are a few facts about cigarettes. The tars found in cigarettes are carcinogenic, which means cancerous. To name just a few, some tars that are found in cigarettes include benzyrenes (which is the chemical in rat poison), aromatic amines, chrysene, phenols, cresols, carboxylic acid, metallic ion, radioactive components, pesticides and additives. The gases from cigarettes are carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrosamines, vinyl chloride, formaldehyde, nitrogen oxides, hydrogen cyanide, ammonia and pyridine. More importantly, let us forget last but not least that the nicotine that everyone wants to get high off of is actually the natural insecticides that plants make. So in reality they are smoking and getting high off of insecticide to only name a few. There are over three thousand chemicals in cigarettes including the environmental smoke that comes from them.

Since there are a large number of smokers in spite of the harmful risks to their health, it is difficult to avoid being in their presence and being affected by their hurtful habit. This brings about the question of to what extent is passive and side stream smoke harmful to other. People may not realize how second hand smoke really affects nonsmokers, so let me point out some facts about it. The concentration of nitrosamines is ten to fifteen times more in side stream smoke, which is the smoke that burns off the ends of the cigarette. Passive smoke is the smoke that a smoker inhales that becomes filtered in their lungs and then exhaled. This kind of smoke is dangerous also but not as much as side stream smoke. A significant amount of people that smoke have measurable amounts of emphysema even though it may take years for it to get bad enough to detect.

Environmental smoke increases the rate of lung cancer in nonsmokers by thirty-four percent, or three thousand cases each year. Twenty percent of lung cancer deaths are attributable to passive smoke. If after all this information you can still pick up a cigarette, you need to ask yourself how much you really care about your body. Think about it!