The Implementation of Smoking Ban in Public Places

In the simplest form, smoking is an action or habit of inhaling and exhaling the smoke of tobacco or a drug. Smoking not only harms the smoker but also harms secondhand smoke. Secondhand smoke is a dangerous health risk causing over 41,000 deaths per year. It can cause or make worse a wide range of damaging health effects in children and adults, including lung cancer, respiratory infections, and asthma, (The American Lung Association Scientific and Medical Editorial Review Panel,2019). Banzhaf (n.d) said that “Action on Smoking and Health has decreed that exposing others to secondhand smoke in any circumstance, including in the home, should make all smokers liable to criminal prosecution for homicide with depraved indifference, punishable by death in areas of the United States.” Thus, smoking should ban in public places for three reasons: air pollution, decline cigarette filter litters, and the bad effects of health secondhand smoker.

First of all, every employee or person has the right to clear pollution without smoke. The smokers not only harm themselves but also harm their children, partners, and just person sit beside them in public places. The smoking pollutes the air because cigarettes made from tobacco leaves that originally absorbed all their carbon from the atmosphere as they grew. The air you breathe with smoke could be harm your lungs as smoke cigarettes every day. The air pollution with smoking maybe leads to Emphysema. Emphysema or COPD means a condition in which the air sacs of the lungs are damaged and enlarged, causing breathlessness. Over 65 million souls around the world have common or severe COPD or Emphysema, and authorities predict that this number will continue to rise worldwide over the next 50 years (Thomas, 2018). The smoker not only diagnosed with COPD but also secondhand smoke diagnosed with it.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2019), as many as 1 out of 4 Americans with COPD never smoked cigarettes. However, smoking accounts for as many as 8 out of 10 COPD-related deaths3 and 38% of the nearly 16 million U.S. adults diagnosed with COPD report being current smokers. Besides, most of the heart disease is causing by air pollution with smoke. Heart disease means a term covering any disorder of the heart. There are 37,000 to 40,000 people die from heart and blood vessel disease caused by other people's smoke each year (Ciampa, 1997). The heart diseases are dangerous and serious diseases that maybe lead to die or live with medical drugs in the whole patient’s life. Overall, smokers not only pollute the air and environment but also harm others by most dangerous diseases.

Secondly, we should ban smoking in public places to decline cigarette filter litters. Cigarette filters are specifically designed to absorb gases and to collect particulate smoke ingredients. Cigarette filters pollute the environment because they don’t decompose quickly. Depending on the conditions of the area of the cigarette, and it can take 18 months to 10 years for a cigarette filter to decompose. Still, that isn't the worst of it. Smokers who are using cigarette filters full of toxins, which can filter into the ground and waterways, damaging living organisms that come into contact with them (Martin, 2019).

Discarded cigarette filters also act as a significant warning to our environment in terms of fire. Every year, forest fires ravage vast areas, killing off wildlife and trees that take cycles to return. Some of those fires are started by natural causes such as dryness and lightning. But according to the National Fire Protection Agency, smoking materials like cigarettes, pipes, and cigars, cause around 90,000 fires every year in the United States and are the number one cause of fire-related deaths. Cigarette-induced fires claim hundreds of lives in the United States each year and injure thousands more, not to mention the millions of dollars that go up in smoke in property damage (Martin, 2019). As was previously stated, the cigarette filters are polluting the soil, waterfalls, environment and making a natural disaster.

Thirdly, the bad effects of health secondhand smoker, Secondhand smoke also is smoke that exhaled, or breathed out, by the person smoking. Secondhand smoke classified into two categories: children and adults. In adults, according to the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (2018), there are 1964 Surgeon General’s Report, 2.5 million adults who were nonsmokers died because they breathed secondhand smoke. These victims are dying by dangerous diseases like lung cancer and stroke. Lung cancer is a condition that causes cells to divide in the lungs uncontrollably. This causes the growth of tumors that cut a person's ability to breathe. Lung cancer is the leading cancer killer in both men and women in the U.S. In 1987, it surpassed breast cancer to become the leading cause of cancer deaths in women. An estimated 154,050 Americans expected to die from lung cancer in 2018, accounting for about 25 percent of all cancer deaths.

The number of deaths caused by lung cancer peaked at 159,292 in 2005 and has since decreased by 6.5 percent to 148,945 in 2016 (American Lung Association, 2016). Stroke is the sudden death of brain cells due to lack of oxygen, caused by blockage of blood flow or rupture of an artery to the brain. The second-hand smoke exhibited to stroke more than a smoker. The odds of a first stroke, fatal or nonfatal, increased among nonsmokers and long-term ex-smokers exposed to second-hand smoke at home or work compared with those not exposed, in New Zealand, second-hand smoke exposure at work estimated to cause around 100 avoidable deaths per year from stroke collectively (Shah & Cole, 2010). Secondly, Children who breathe secondhand smoke have a higher risk of developing ear infections, diseases and viruses, bronchitis and pneumonia, and tooth decay. They are more likely to gasp, have a close nose and experience headaches, sore throats, eye sensitivity, hoarseness and difficulty recovering from respiratory infections. They also miss more days of school and athletic opportunities as well as fun times with friends (Brody, 2018). Smokers are dangerous to his wife, kids, friends, and just only stranger in the street.

On the other hand, there is a different point of view that supports smoking in public places. According to Wirtz (2017), In 2013 already there was evidence that the commonly accepted narrative on secondhand smoke wasn't completely accurate. The Journal of the National Cancer Institute published a study that finds no important relationship between secondhand smoke and cancer: 'A large prospective cohort study of more than 76,000 women confirmed a strong association between cigarette smoking and lung cancer but found no link between the disease and secondhand smoke.' However, this study gave numbers and statistics, but I think this study with insufficient details. Because this study said secondhand smoke and gave numbers and statistics about women only and didn't mention men and children.

Also, lung cancer has two kinds: Small cell lung cancer and non-small cell lung cancer, and small cell lung cancer may cause by smoking. Besides, women are exhibiting to breast cancer like lung cancer caused by smoking. Because breast cancer is a relatively common disease to women, researchers say the up to 90% increase in breast cancer risk shown by this study represents a major public health threat in addition to the already known heart disease and lung cancer risks associated with secondhand smoke (WebMD,2005). Otherwise, in my opinion, ban smoking in public place to reduce the number of cancers and heart diseases, because smoking not only harms the smoker or secondhand smoker and infect women only with lung cancers but also harms men, women, and children with different kind of diseases and cancers.

All the evidence shows how much smoking is harmful to the nations and the universe. Firstly, smoking harm air by cigarettes made from tobacco leaves that originally absorbed all their carbon from the atmosphere. Besides, cigarette filters pollute the environment because they don’t decompose quickly and make natural disasters. Finally, the bad effects of health secondhand smoker, secondhand smoke may adults or children. Both perhaps infect by dangerous diseases like heart diseases and cancers. Afterall the government should ban smoking in public places.