An Argumentative Research on the Danger of Cigarettes

There is a famous saying which goes by, "Cigarettes are not part of human behavior, they are a habit". From the time when I figured out what a cigarette is I have been wondering as to why people blame this 'consumer' product so much? I may sound unorthodox in my tone, however, you can be assured that I have done my research on the argument that I am about to portray in this essay. Like most other products, Cigarette too was invented by humans. What baffles me most is that why do people smoke? Do they get pleasure? Is it a social stigma that they got to live by?. There could be thousands of views and logics behind the questions I asked, but one thing is for sure, if we want to save us from the harmful effects of Cigarettes we have to change our habit and not make cigarettes a "Scapegoat".

If we look at the life cycle of a cigarette we will see that it contains no 'magical' or 'enchanting' elements in it which can make a person addicted for life. The main component in cigarette is Tobacco. Tobacco leaves are harvested in China, India, Brazil, Russia, USA and so on. When the leaves are ripened they are brought to a curing barn. The entire plant is cut and left in the field. From there the tobacco leaves goes through a process of curing, moistening, sorting and blending. The leaves are then pressed into cakes and mechanically shredded.

The cigarette paper that is generally used is made from seed flax and paper pulp. Care is taken when the tobacco paper is dispersed in the rolling paper because the paper is flammable. Large and complex machines are used to cut the cigarettes into desired length and give it a firm structure. At the end a filter is been placed and desired seals are printed on it to give a finishing touch.

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According to news presented in Fox Business Network about 8.3 billion dollars is invested in marketing cigarettes to consumers. Although there has been considerable reduction in consumption of cigarettes and tobacco products in general since the 1980's due to government's vivid anti smoking campaign and other advertisements advocating against smoking of cigarettes, the industry is still enormous in United States and gigantic in third world countries where not much attention is giving to public health.

In an article published at IndiaTimes newspaper the reporter blames the modernized advertisements which shows smoking to be a “cool” social activity has led youngsters to be more inclined towards smoking. Once again, the blame goes towards the people who are making money out of cigarettes. People are ostracizing the use of cigarettes, the companies are using tactics and cunning manipulations to divert our brains from realizing the harmful effects of cigarette smoking.

There are about 46.6 million adult smokers in United States. When interviewing a teenager who is a regular smoker on why did he chose to smoke at early age the answer that I receive was quite remarkable. The boy said his father smoked, before that his grandfather smoked, even most of his friends smoke, so not smoking would mean he is not embracing the legacy that the society had endowed upon him. Although this example is not universal for most other smokers and I am sure there are tons of reasons as to why a person decides to smoke. But research does claim that peer pressure is one of the vital reasons behind youngster choosing to smoke.

According to news reporter Carla Rivera of Los Angeles Times, students use peer pressure to douse teen smoking. In this article we can see that California is leading a national trend that finds smoking rates falling sharply among teenagers, after a rise in early 1990's. This was primarily due to the legislation passed by California Senate that smoking was banned in public places. The reason why I decided to share this information is because, if a cosmopolitan state like California where there is huge diversity in ethnicity and culture can do considerably great in reducing smoking rates then the rest of the states should be encouraged to do the same.

The most harmful substances in cigarette are nicotine and TAR. TAR is an adhesive black substance that is used in streets, rooftop etc. TAR gets clogged up in lungs causing lung cancer. Nicotine is an addictive drug. According to WHO (world health organization) Addiction to nicotine emblazed tobacco kills one person prematurely every six seconds. WHO also states that physiological and behavioral processes that determine tobacco addiction are similar to those that determine dangerous drugs such as heroine and cocaine.

A study of six popular brands of cigarettes have found that nicotine content ranges from 3.4 mg/g to 11.5 mg/g which is higher than the body can decompose of easily. These alarming facts are good enough to paint a clear picture in our mind of what do we get from smoking. Are we really willing to pay the price of losing an organ or severely damaging our heart and blood vessels just to get a psychological satisfaction by that one puff of cigarette which never sticks to a single puff! Every time you get angry or frustrated you want to smoke a cigarette, when your mind is not working you take a puff to open up your mind, these kind of attitudes convinced me that smoking is more of a psychological 'disease' than it is thought to be.

There is a profound and elaborate article written by McArthur Waldron titled, "The psychology of smoking" (vol 2, 1998). The author in this article describes beautifully as smoking to be a habit which seems to fulfill the personal needs of the smoker. The author states in the article that "The fact a man smokes or not seems to be determined by whether or not he has been oriented to the habit as result of his social setting. That leads us to deicide is smoking a habit or a choice? Whatever it is we can be assured that it is a personal decision and that cigarettes does not force someone to smoke!

Cigarette smoke contains carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide both of which are harmful. While carbon dioxide is often blamed for global warming and depletion in the balance of oxygen in the human body, carbon monoxide is the more harmful one. A research conducted by Cancer Research UK states that carbon monoxide from the cigarette smoke is the largest determinant of harmful levels of toxins in blood. However, it's not only cigarette smoke but the car fuel, burning stove, nuclear emissions etc also produce huge amounts of smoke that contains carbon monoxide. Thus, if we want to protect ourselves from such harmful emissions it is necessary to not only barricade the cigarette smokes but also make sure other fuel emissions are also lowered from the environment.

There are numerous ways by which we can educate ourselves and our youngsters to abstain from smoking cigarettes. One of the useful media would be through documentaries. Visual effects always have a good impact on memory. There are plenty of good works conducted on spreading the knowledge of the harmful effects of smoking to environment. For this paper I have selected BBC Horizon 2006 documentary titled "We love Cigarettes". In this documentary host Allen Carr uses several techniques to eradicate smoking habits in humans. He uses hypnosis to get into the mind of the smoker and lure him out of smoking. He substitutes cigarettes with E-cigs to see how a smoker accepts it.

E-cigs does not contain any nicotine, TAR, carbon monoxide so it is safer to use. It only creates the delusion of the sensation that is felt when a person smokes. He also tried NRT on victims but without success. At the end we see that the most powerful weapon against smoking is willpower. In this documentary Allen Carr uses logical explanations which will leave a smoker thinking how he had been deceived all his life. This show is particularly helpful in my research because I too believe that resolution is the most important thing to fight of the urge to smoke. If a teenager is determined not to smoke he will never smoke no matter how much peer pressure he is put on, similarly a smoker can decide to quit smoking if he realizes the call from his dying cells in the body due to smoking.

I would like to conclude my research paper with a important message for my fellow readers. If you think that cigarette smoking is cool then you should know that you have to regret for the consequences that it causes. Not only there is high risk of dying earlier but also as a smoker you are harming others. A smoker can also be blamed for damaging our environment contributing to global warming and climate changes. These charges are very gruesome and almost similar in accusation of being a criminal! So next time when you decide to smoke think about all the crimes that you are getting involved in.

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