Tobacco Use is a Real Epidemic That Should Be Eliminated - Term Paper Example

Tobacco Use is a Real Epidemic That Should Be Eliminated Alongside with incurable diseases and epidemics, smoking hasbecome a public health problem that deserves considerable attention. These days, the sales of tobacco products in the world have never been as high as they are today. Many people tend to refer to such high rates of tobacco consumption as to epidemic. In fact, it is not for nothing because tobacco as a legal drug is the reason of a great number of deaths and a cause of severe diseases. Tobacco takes toll on the lives of people all over the world. Concerned with public health, many governments have implemented regulations which prohibit smoking in public places. As the results of researches show, such laws work but they are not helpful enough to stop the epidemic. Therefore, there is a great need in the total ban of tobacco products so that public health improves. All the forms of tobacco use should be banned because of their harmful effects on a user’s health. For the first time, the health harms from smoking and other types of tobacco use have been documented in the middle of the 1960s, and since that time a great number of studies and researches on the influence of tobacco on human health have been conducted. As well as the earliest studies, the most recent ones show that smoking and other forms of tobacco use result in the emergence of a wide range of problems with health. For example, the 2014 Surgeon General’s report shows that tobacco smoking is linked to diseases almost of all organs and organ systems of the body and to the overall decline of health. In addition to this, the study published in New England Journal of Medicine in 2013 reports that smokers lose about ten years of life expectance compared to those who never smoke (Schmidt). Despite the data obtained from the numerous studies and researches, which are now available almost to everyone, smoking and other forms of tobacco use are the main causes of death in the United States as tobacco use is extremely addictive. It is so because of the presence of nicotine, a natural drug, which is responsible for a person becoming an addict. Inhaled with smoke, nicotine travels with blood right to the brain in several seconds. It causes strong addiction similar to that one caused by such heavy drugs as cocaine and heroin (National Cancer Institute). In the United States, about 480,000 people die of diseases caused by tobacco use in a year, and this is more than the total number of people who die in motor vehicles accidents, because of AIDS, the use of illegal drugs, alcohol etc. combined (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). The majority of researches on the harm of tobacco study the influence of tobacco smoking; the latest reports have also shown that other types of tobacco consumption also cause health problems. The main health problem caused by smoking tobacco is lung cancer. In accordance with the data presented by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, smoking results in 90 percent of all lung cancer death in men and 80 percent of lung cancer deaths in women. In total, about 130,000 men and women die of lung cancer caused by smoking in a year. In addition to lung cancer, smoking causes cancer of bladder, pancreas, kidney, blood, liver, stomach, colon, larynx, and oral cavity. Also, tobacco use causes such respiratory diseases as chronic bronchitis, emphysema, and cardiovascular diseases, among which are coronary heart disease, ischemic heart disease, hypertension, and stroke. Such medical problems as the reduction of fertility, erectile dysfunction in men as well as the increase of the risk of diabetes, vision and hearing problems, rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, chronic coughing and many others are consequences of tobacco use (Schmidt). It is not only tobacco smoking that harms human health. In fact, in accordance with National Cancer Institute, all types of tobacco products, for example, pipe tobacco, waterpipe and smokeless tobacco (chewing tobacco), are both addictive and harmful. More specifically, users of smokeless tobacco are at greater risk of having oral, esophageal and pancreatic cancer. In addition to this, chewing tobacco causes leukoplakia (a disease characterized by lesions on tongue, cheeks, and gums), which, in its turn, can lead to oral cancer, gingivitis (gum disease), and dental caries (Schmidt). Influence of tobacco is even more serious for pregnant women. Both smoking and secondhand smoking are among the main reasons of preterm delivery, low birth weight, stillbirth (death of the baby before delivery), ectopic pregnancy, sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). Accordingly to the latest statistical data, about 400,000 pregnant women in the USA smoke, which result in more than 1,000 death of children, including 400 from SIDS (Schmidt). What is more, children exposed to secondhand smoke both during pregnancy and after birth are at greater risk of cleft lips and palates, respiratory diseases, abnormal blood pressure, severe asthma attacks, middle ear infections, and childhood leukemia. Tobacco smoking is harmful not only to smokers’ health but to nonsmokers surrounding them as well. Secondhand smoke, also referred to as passive smoke and environmental tobacco smoke is a carcinogen, a mixture comprised of toxic chemicals, 70 of which are claimed to cause cancer (National Cancer Institute). Children’s exposure to secondhand smoke is described above. For adults, secondhand smoke is also very harmful for it increases the risk of nasal and eye irritation, lung and nasal sinus cancer, chronic and acute coronary diseases etc. In total, in the United States, secondhand smoke is the cause of 46,000 deaths each year (National Cancer Institute). These days, more and more countries tend to adopt laws that prohibit smoking in public places. The researcher on the effectiveness of such laws show that they do work for health of workers in public places and the general population. The 2009 data show that smokefree laws result in the decline of the number of people with heart diseases in the United States. The 2010 report of the Institute of Medicine reports that there exists a causal relationship between the decrease of acute coronary events and implementation of smokefree laws. In addition to this, hospitalizations for tobacco-related diseases have also dropped dramatically (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). Indeed, smoke free laws work not only on the territory of the United States. For example, in Ireland, the country which was the first to implement workplace-smoking ban on a national level, the level of respiratory issues decreased by 17 percent only in a year after the law was adopted. In Italy, the nationwide ban on smoking in public places resulted in the decrease of smoking frequency among men, drop of cigarette sales and decrease of the number of heart attacks (Katz). Overall, as the results show, smokefree laws have changed the state of public health a bit, and, consequently, there is a great possibility that total ban of all tobacco products can improve the situation. As it seen from what is mentioned above, tobacco use is often referred to as epidemic for a good reason. Millions of people suffer of severe diseases because of their addiction to nicotine, and hundreds of thousand people die because of diseases caused by tobacco use every year. The implementation of laws restricting smoking in public places has shown good results but it is not enough as many people still suffer. Therefore, the need to ban all tobacco products is obvious. In today’s society, such a task looks very idealistic and extremely difficult to turn into reality; however, seriousness of the problem suggests no other ways out but to ban tobacco. Works Cited Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Health Effects if Cigarette Smoking." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 6 Feb 2014. Web. 27 Nov 2014. Read More