OPINION: Let's make tobacco illegal

February 17th 2:42 pm | Colby Howarth    

It was mid-November in 2001, and we had walked into the hospital room that my grandfather was admitted into. He was connected to a couple of different machines that were helping him stay alive. Before entering the room my mother had explained to my younger sister and I that our Taata had lung cancer (taata is the Iñupiaq word for grandfather). Being the curious little girls that we were we asked her how he developed the lung cancer. She told us it was from smoking cigarettes. That day we had to say goodbye to our Taata because the lung cancer was so severe that the doctors could not help keep him alive anymore. Who would have thought that 10 years later my grandfather from my father's side would be diagnosed with emphysema, which is also caused by long-term smoking. Why does our government allow such a life-threatening substance to be legal?

In this day and age, smoking cigarettes is highly overrated. People often use smoking cigarettes as a "stress reliever" when they are facing tough situations in life. Open cigarette smoking and tobacco chewing happens all around the world, and that is not an example we want to be set for our younger generation. The U.S. government should make cigarettes illegal because not only are millions of smokers suffering from diseases or cancer, but they are putting the people and environment around them in danger of unwanted and unnecessary health issues, and in result of banning tobacco current users would save thousands of dollars per year.

According to the Web site of the International Cancer Institute, there are at least 250 harmful chemicals in cigarettes. Not only do cigarettes contain chemicals such as carbon monoxide and ammonia, but 69 of those 250 chemicals are known to cause cancer. Some of those cancerous chemicals include: ethylene oxide, benzene, cadmium, vinyl chloride, and arsenic. Cigarette smokers take the risk of using this substance, but all the people who do not smoke are unprotected from those harmful chemicals, and even just a little inhalation can damage their health.

Terry Martin posted an article on the Web site about.com regarding deaths related to the use of tobacco. Statistics show that every eight seconds someone dies due to the consequences of smoking, and in America one of every five deaths is because of tobacco use. With that smoking and the use of tobacco are the causes of four to five million deaths per year.

"Smoking is on the rise in the developing world but falling in developed nations. Among Americans, smoking rates shrunk by nearly half in three decades (from the mid-1960s to mid-1990s), falling to 23 percent of adults by 1997. In the developing world, tobacco consumption is rising by 3.4 percent per year," (Martin, GLOBAL SMOKING STATISTICS).

Martin had posted another article on this website about cancer caused by smoking. Here is some information he shared: cigarette smoking is the cause of lung cancer being the leading cancer of death. Smoking does not only cause lung cancer, but it also leads to some cases of laryngeal, bladder, and esophageal cancers. Using tobacco also leads to other diseases such as: aortic aneurysm, asthma, strokes, chronic bronchitis, heart disease, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Included in the study it was found that 13 to 14 years of a person's life are taken away from smoking regularly. Another fact is that deaths of more than 440,000 people are prematurely in result of cigarette smoking only in the United States (National Cancer Institute). Dying because of one of the listed cancers or diseases is a shameful cause of death versus choosing a healthier way of approaching stress relief.

Those who do not smoke do not deserve that dangling risk of health issues only because the people around them have the freedom of cigarette smoking. There are at least 3,000 non-smokers killed per year by cancer from secondhand smoke. In addition to those cancer deaths, about 46,000 other non-smoking people are diagnosed with and die from heart disease also because of secondhand smoke. Within the group of people who do not smoke are the pregnant women who are exposed to secondhand smoke, and their babies may be at risk of low birth weight. Secondhand smoke does not only put adults at risk of heath issues, but do the smokers keep in mind that they are infecting young healthy children too? Seeing so many people smoke on a daily basis is so normal to children today that every day 80,000 to 100,000 teens try smoking cigarettes, and about half of them continue smoking consistently. Smokers are not the only people who encourage smoking. Advertisements are also responsible for the start up of teens thinking it is okay to use tobacco.

There are thousands of pregnant women who smoke also. They are not only harming themselves, but they are jeopardizing a potentially healthy baby. Another document was posted by Martin and this one was about the chances of complications happening when a pregnant woman smokes. In addition to the fact that the baby can have a low birth weight more than 300,000 deaths are because of that factor. Constrictions in blood vessels are caused by nicotine and that prevents oxygen from getting to the unborn baby. All of the organs in an unborn baby are very fragile, and when the carrier smokes they are weakening the baby's lung growth. He found that breast milk contains nicotine, and that is so dangerous to the baby's health. Babies are more likely to be born with ADHD and Autism if their mothers had smoked while she was pregnant. Miscarriages and stillbirth rates are also very high due to pregnant women smoking. A woman should not have the right to purposely put a baby in danger of all those awful consequences, and making cigarettes illegal would reduce all of these results.

Everyone has to pay bills. Buying cigarettes or other tobacco products is an unnecessary bill, but people still choose to do so. A pack of cigarettes can cost up to 10 or 11 dollars, and there are people who waste thousands of dollars a year buying them. All the harm done to those smokers also cause them to spend hundreds of thousands, and maybe even millions of dollars on medical bills. In Alaska a smoker can buy a brand new snow machine with the amount of money spent on tobacco per year. With the money a cancerous smoker spends on their medical bills they could have bought a new car for their family, or maybe even a nice house. If cigarettes and tobacco products were made illegal all of those things would be made possible. Instead millions of people are flushing valuable money down the toilet just so that they can have their regular smoke.

Smokers and tobacco companies will argue against banning tobacco products. Of course tobacco industries will be run down, but instead of harming the health of people who consume their products they can be growing crops and running an industry that will positively affect people. Rather than producing such a severe death causing substance tobacco farmers could make decent money by growing fruits and vegetables that people can benefit from. Large industries and companies would not be the only upset people, but so would the present smokers. There are plenty of different ways people can relieve every day stress, and there are definitely healthier ways to do so. Smokers can distract themselves from smoking by being involved in activities such as yoga, meditation, basketball, hockey, journaling, board games, etc.

We all know or care for someone who smokes. If cigarettes were made illegal we would have so many more years to spend with the ones we love. Not only would prohibiting cigarettes give us healthier people, but they would save so much money that can be spent on items worth much more than cancer. We can help these people by banning the use of cigarettes and other tobacco products around the world, but more importantly in the United States.

Colby Howarth grew up in Kotzebue, and is currently finishing up her second semester at the University of Idaho as a freshman. In the fall she will be transferring to one of the Minnesota State Universities where she plans on attaining a degree in Nursing.