Smoking, the Wrong Choice

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Recommended: The importance of smoking as a public health issue

There are many people today who choose the path of smoking. Many of my friends started smoking before their eighteenth birthday and some continue to smoke now. I always asked them why they started to smoke and many of them said that everyone else did so why not try it. Well that young curiosity is leading to a life-long addiction of spending more than $50 a week on cigarettes, lighting up after every few hours, and standing outside in the bitter cold freezing to have a few drags.

Peter Brimelow wrote an article called Thank You for Smoking. Peter is a senior editor for Forbes magazine; this is taken from Forbes magazine on July 4, 1994. This was in my written communication book as an example of an argumentative essay. He a major claim, minor claim, and warrants, all needed for a good rebuttal essay but the support for all of these is misleading.

Brimelow’s Claims and Backing

This article implies that the government is doing badly by having the tobacco companies pay for smoking-related health care costs and stating that lawyers are a disease and hide the real truth about how cigarettes are not always unhealthy. This article also implies that smoking can benefit your health in some ways but also accepting The Surgeon General’s warning on various diseases caused by smoking. Peter states that “it appears the human system can clear the effects of three to five of the much stronger pre- 1960 cigarettes, if dispersed across a day, with relatively little risk.” (Brimelow 143). Peter is mistaken All smoking, no matter how much, is bad for all people and can harm the body in some way.

Problems with Brimelow’s Claims and Backing

Brimelow says that the government is targeting tobacco companies by having them pa...

... middle of paper ...

...garette to keep you alert and awake? Knowing that when you inhale that cigarette you are inhaling a life time of buying a carton every week and taking cigarette breaks outside. Knowing that you are setting yourself up for terminal diseases such as lung cancer and emphysema both can slowly kill anyone. These diseases are proven by medical research to come from long term smoking.

In conclusion Peter’s article on the positive affects of smoking is misleading. Most of his facts are not totally true. Smoking is a bad habit that not only is expensive but also kills you in the long run.

Works Cited

Brimelow, Peter. “Thank You for Smoking. . .?” The Genre of Argument. Ed. Irene L. Clark. Boston: Thomas- Heinle. 1998

When You Smoke, Your Family Smokes. American Lung Association. 17 Mar. 2004. http://www.lungusa.org/tobacco/fda.html#everyone

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