Smoking

Smoking

If you went to see a movie in the 60's chances you saw somebody smoking in that movie was big. In the past smoking was very normal to people and nobody made a big deal about it. Nowadays it's different. Smoking is a big issue today. It is regularly on the news that in some countries smoking is banned from cafй's or other public places. Why is tobacco, especially the last few years, such a big deal?

Lets take America for example; current estimates say that 25,2 million men (26,7% of the population of the men) and 23,2 million women (22,8% of the population of the women) smoke. And 6000 teenagers a day try cigarettes and 3000 actually get hooked. 430.000 died last year of tobacco-related causes. These are huge numbers.

It looks like the government makes people stop smoking because the death toll is too big. The government are spending a lot of money on campaigns against smoking, and the rest of the world is following this example. More and more people are against smoking because the government wants to forbid it. Isn't that weird? Twenty years ago almost nobody made complains about someone smoking in a cafй. In some homes today it is forbidden to light up a cigarette.

What about Cars? America is the country with the most cars, a very big percentage of them are SUV's which use a large amount of gas, which contain CO2. Has the government researched how many people die of CO2 related causes? And what about guns, Fast food and alcohol? I don't see any large campaigns against those issues. Of course there are some people against guns, alcohol and other "bad" things. But there are no large-scale attacks against these problems.

Of course these problems aren't only in America but all over the world. In more and more countries smoking is forbidden in cafй's, clubs and other public places. In the Netherlands it's even forbidden to smoke on the railway platform. In the future it is likely that tobacco will become illegal like marijuana is in almost every country.

I am a non-smoker, but I really don't mind if someone is smoking. As long as they don't blow the smoke directly in my face I have no problems with people lighting up a cigarette. Why don't we let everybody decide for him or herself if they want to smoke or not? What I want to say to the government