Should the age of purchasing cigarettes be raised from age 18 to 21?
Smoking is a practice in which a substance, most commonly tobacco, is burned and the smoke is tasted or inhaled. People smoke for various reasons. The main reason people smoke is to relieve stress and tension that come with a difficult challenge. Other reasons are media influences, advertising, parental influence, risk taking-behavior, and peer pressure. These factors can result in negative and life threatening effects. One can purchase a pack of cigarettes at the age of 18 currently, but the age will change in the future. The City Council’s vote to raise the minimum age requirement from 18 to 21 for cigarette purchases is positive.
What makes a cigarette harmful and the effect of it on the body?
Cigarettes are made from dried tobacco leaves as well as ingredients added for flavor and to make smoking more pleasant. The complex mixtures of chemicals from smoking are produced by the burning of tobacco and its additives. It is composed of 7,000 chemicals in which 60 are known to cause cancer also known as carcinogens. Lung and heart disease are deadly and are known to happen from the substances. Nicotine is the ingredient that produces the effect people look for. Some short-effects of smoking are poor lung function, stained teeth, premature aging, bad breath, and a less ability to smell and taste. Some long-term effects are heart disease, bronchitis, emphysema, and stroke. Smoking is the single most preventable death in society and in the United States causes 1 in 5 deaths.
What are some benefits of waiting to smoke till 21?
The raising of the minimum age requirement is needed so the effects stated can be prevented. At the age of 18, one is more likely to hang out with friends and smoke. At the age of 20, maturity is shown in the person. 21 year olds are more likely to know the difference whether it is right or wrong to smoke. Young adults can make wiser decisions than teenagers. Alcohol is dangerous and has an age limit of 21. Smoking is more addictive and harmful than alcohol so the age limit should be 21 as well. Another reason it is a good idea to raise the age is because an 18 year old can purchase a pack of cigarettes for a 16 year old. But if the age is raised to 21, the 16 year old has to ask someone in the workforce or others.
This issue hit home for me because it puts many people at risk for things such as car accidents, binge drinking, alcoholism, depression, suicide, and rape, things no one should ever experience, let alone in middle or high school. These reasons are why the legal age to purchase, and consume alcohol should remain at 21 years of age.
There has been an expediential growth in the number of teenager’s beginning to smokes do to facts such as curiousness, peer
Before D.A.R.E., I was not mindful of the extensive damage cigarettes and other tobacco products cause. Cigarette smoke contains over 200 harmful chemicals, including rat poison. Because of nicotine, cigarettes are highly addictive. As a result, smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in the U.S. It causes over 400,000 deaths annually.
...e minimum legal drinking age in the United States should remain at twenty-one years old. Since the National Legal Drinking Age Act was ratified, the consumption of liquor among minors has abated significantly. With the restriction in affect, the United States is definitely a safer place when it comes to alcohol use. Even though, the reduction of the drinking age would get rid of the taboo that surrounds alcohol which would result in fewer teens drinking just to be accepted by their peers, young adolescents now have a harder time getting access to alcohol due to the minimum legal drinking age resulting in less alcohol-affiliated problems and a decrease in damage to their bodies. Teens and alcohol are not a good mix so citizens of the United States should keep them separated as best as they can. By having a minimum age limit of twenty-one, that is a great way to do it.
Cigarettes are a type of tobacco product which contain several hundred ingredients. Although the majority of these ingredients have not been proved to be harmful, the cigarette smoke which results from these ingredients burning have over four hundred toxins, about forty of which are carcinogenic. Three of the best known ingredients that cause negative side effects are nicotine, tar, and carbon monoxide. Nicotine is an addictive substance, which is lethal in large quantities. Tar causes a sticky buildup to form on the lungs, which reduce the elasticity that is necessary for the alveoli in the lungs to be able to be an effective respiratory surface. Carbon monoxide competes with oxygen to bind on hemoglobin in red blood cells, which makes it difficult for cellular respiration to occur. These are onl...
Cigarette is mainly made out of tobacco. Tobacco contains a massive amount of harmful substances such as carbon monoxide, acrolein, nicotine and much more. When people smoke, the chemicals enter their body. Also, the tobacco smoke releases so other people could receive chemicals if close the to the smoker. These harmful chemicals can cause many types of illnesses and diseases, and some of the diseases could often lead to death. Also, cigarette smoking is very addictive because the tobacco contains nicotine which makes the user addicted to smoking. Cigarette smoking is a currently worldwide problem and should be reduced everywhere because it is the number one killer in the world.
Smoking is a lifestyle, a habit, and a trend. Smoking has become a social activity among teens, connecting them through the craving of a smoke. Smoking is seen as seductive and cool in the media and movies which influences teenagers to smoke even more. The World Health Organization has stated that “Tobacco kills around 6 million people each year. More than 5 million of those deaths are the result of direct tobacco use while more than 600,000 are the result of non-smokers being exposed to second-hand smoke.” As of April 2016, only 7% of teenagers in the U.S. smoke, but it is said that tobacco use will kill 8 million people annually by 2030. 99% of adult smokers start in their years as teenagers. Smoking is an epidemic that has taken control of people’s lives since 1881 and the media since the early 1900s. Smoking currently kills about 440,000 people a year in the U.S. I feel that it is an issue because it is the #1 most preventable way to die, but people still continue to smoke because of how it looks and how they are perceived as a person if they do. The fact that people become addicted to a trend that will attribute to their death for the sake of being thought of as cooler, is a problem that needs to be addressed.
People often turn to cigarettes to suppress hunger or relieve stress (Dichter). After a short period of time, a person can become addicted to the satisfaction they get from smoking a cigarette. Certain tobacco products contain toxins, carcinogens, and poisons that are all extremely harmful to the human body. 60 chemicals that are contained in a tobacco cigarette are cancer-causing agents (Wexner). It is these chemicals that make cigarettes, as well as other tobacco products, so addictive to their users.
Every year cigarette smoking is responsible for 500,000 premature deaths (Nugel), you do not want to be just another statistic, do you? America’s first cash crop was tobacco. That means that tobacco has been around for a really long time. It was not until 1865, though, that cigarettes were sold commercially. They were sold to soldiers at the end of the Civil War (Dowshen). From then, cigarettes spread like wildfire, and it was not until 1964 that anyone made a stand about the negative effects of tobacco and cigarettes. People start smoking for all different reasons, some to fit in and some to “escape”. Regardless, it is a horrible habit. 3900 children will try their first cigarette today. Amongst adults who currently smoke, 68% of them began at age 18 or younger, and 85% at 21 or younger (American Lung Association). And of all those people, 70% say if they were given another chance they would never have picked up that first cigarette (Tobacco Free Maine). Smoking is responsible for 1 and 5 deaths in the united states, and is the number one preventable cause of death (NLH). Smoking burns and there is no doubt about that, but before one picks up that cigarette, understand the negative effects on not only oneself, but others affected by ones poor choices, like second-hand smoke. Because of smoking cigarettes, many types of cancer, decrease of life quality, and negative health effects have become all too common in the world today.
Cigarette contains different poisonous ingredients, and nicotine is the one that creates addiction and leads to different diseases. Smoking cigarette is one of the worst problems our world is facing and the main reason for this term to be stressful is its consequence. Cigarette can cause different diseases that can directly or indirectly lead to death; “tobacco use is responsible for nearly 1 in 5 deaths in the united states” (cigarette smoking). Most of the time this consequence highly exists on young smokers or victims can be affected by the consequence because they started smoking young. In the United States 18 is the legal age for smoking cigarette and people are still using this law, but it is now the right time for a change because young citizens were affected a lot as a result of early age smoking. Instead of setting the age limit of smoking cigarette 18, we have to raise it to 21 because of the responsibility, Health issue, and since the alcohol drinking and marijuana smoking age Is 21, we have to use the same age limit for smoking cigarette.
· contributes to the development of cancer of the bladder, pancreas, and kidney. · causes low birth weight in babies of women who use tobacco during pregnancy. · contains more than 4,000 chemical compounds, at least 43 of which cause cancer in humans and animals. · contains nicotine, which causes a chemical addiction to cigarette smoking through its effect on the nervous system.
can cause cancer ( http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/tutorials/smokingthefacts/hp099201.html). Many of the ingredients in cigarettes are not substances that humans usually consume, but smokers (and the non-smokers around them) do. Some of the ingredients contained in cigarettes are a type of rat. poison, a type of paint stripper, a type of toilet cleaner, lighter. fuel, the chemical found in mothballs, poison that was once used in gas chambers and there is even a type of rocket fuel found in cigarettes (http://ash.org/additives.html).
There are lots of harmful things in the world such as alcohol, drugs and cigarettes. Cigarettes are smoked and liked being smoked everywhere besides it is poisonous. Although smoking is harmful for people's life. Some people believe that smoking should not be banned. However, in my view, smoking should be banned since it damages people on account of three important reasons. They are health, social and budget problems.
One person dies every six seconds due to a tobacco related disease, which results in a shocking amount of ten deaths per minute. Tobacco is one of the most heavily used addictive products in the United States. Tobacco contains over 4,000 chemicals; approximately 250 are dangerously harmful to humans. Smoking is a major public health problem. All smokers face an increased risk of lung cancer, cardiovascular problems and many other disorders. Smoking should be banned due to its many health risks, its second hand related smoke illness, and its excessive cost.
Consequently, tobacco which contains many harmful chemicals damages human beings’ health day by day. Although people are aware of the bad effects of smoking, they still smoke for one reason or another. When the current situation is considered, it is clear that smoking which has been spreading all over the world is not only the problem of a country or a territory but the problem of mankind because smoking brings many disadvantages for humans like diseases. I personally believe that it is important to help children remain lifelong non-smokers because they are our hope for a non-smoking future.