Can Smoking be prevented by Making Tobacco Illegal?
Introduction
Modern society is experiencing vast problems associated with substance abuse. One of the most abused substances is cigarette smoking, which is a mass phenomenon worldwide that has led to a lot of social concerns. Globally, there has been an increased number of smokers, which has translated to the increased number of preventable diseases, disabilities, and associated deaths. The prevalence of smoking can be closely attributed to the increase in cigarettes' cheap and mass manufacturing. With evidence from various statistics, smoking is a big challenge due to the increased levels of mortality among smokers due to its associated diseases—additionally, the undergoing health damage that involves the smokers and second-hand smokers breathing tobacco from the environment. Due to increased global smoking, there have been several suggestions to solve mass smoking, such as a smoking ban. As an intervention to reduce the fast-growing rates of smokers and minimize the dangers associated with smoking, tobacco should be made illegal.
There are different stands that exist on prevention smoking by making smoking illegal. A group of proponents has stipulated reasons that make them feel that making tobacco an illegal product in the United States would reduce cigarette consumption. However, smoking has been a controversial issue since the 16th century, with a vast number of supporters and critics. Those that support the ban on smoking have developed a list of supporting documents highlighting the need to ban smoking, making tobacco join the group of illegal substances consumed in this region (Fouad et al. 77). One of the key reasons why smoking needs to be banned is to reduce the risks associated with smoking and reduce the risks of direct smokers and second-hand smoke. A group of advocates campaigning for the ban of smoking have searched and highlighted the problems associated with smoking cigarettes to both active and passive smokers. According to a report generated by the centers for disease control and prevention, many health effects are associated with smoking to the people who encounter the smoke.
Smoking results in diseases and disability, and it affects almost arm every body organ. According to a report from the CDC, over sixteen million Americans are living with a disease caused by smoking. Smoking is severe to the extent of causing deaths and makes people live with a chronic smoking-related illness. Some of the feared diseases caused by smoking include cancer, stroke, heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and diabetes. Also, smokers are a high chance of contracting tuberculosis, some specific eye diseases, rheumatoid arthritis, and problems with the immune system. The most significant concern is second-hand smoke exposure, which adversely affects passive smokers (Kim et al., 2018). According to experts' reports, exposure to smoke has led to the death of thousands of non-smoking adults and infants every year. Among the adults, the effects of the smoke are causing stroke, lung cancer, and coronary heart diseases, while in children, smoke causes increased rates of sudden infant deaths syndrome, acute respiratory infections, severe asthma, slowed lug growth, and other related respiratory infections.
Additionally, there is a need to ban smoking from reducing its impacts on the environment. Smoking is one of the contributors to air pollution, which supporters of the ban argue that in places where smoking is banned, the air quality is good instead of cities and states that still allow smoking. Smokers are known to directly or indirectly impact the environment (Kim et al., 1981). The direct impact is on waste deposits; cigarette butts are non-biodegradable and sometimes clog water systems when thrown carelessly. Proponents state that banning smoking will lessen solid wastes associated with cigarette remains, which destroy the beauty of the environment, effects which also affect the water systems. On the other hand, smoking has far-reaching impacts on the environment, especially those associated with the possibility of fires. There have been various fire outbreaks of fires attributed to smoking, especially on highly flammable materials such as grassland forests. Reckless throwing of cigarette remains before they are entirely off might cause fires that consume large grass tracts and alter the environment.
Overly, a ban on smoking will help in reducing individual daily expenditure and improve work productivity. Banning smoking means cutting down all the expenses of purchasing cigarettes and lighters. In places where smokers are concentrated, especially in the workplace, needs an additional place for smokers, indoor smoking will also attract more ventilation. Cigarettes are also expensive, and addicts spend much of their cash buying them; therefore, a ban on tobacco will make them spend on other essential activities. Moreover, banning tobacco will improve the productivity of the smoker and those surrounding them; non-smokers are highly impacted by smoke and the bothersome smell (Laverty et al. 346). Banning smoking will ensure a good working environment and thus an increase in production. Through these efforts, getting sick is reduced, which is a strategy of avoiding healthcare costs. This can positively affect the economy by cutting the amount of GDP used in healthcare costs.
The impacts of tobacco on people cannot be assumed, and these factors need to be weighed out and thus take the necessary measures on smoking. This might include setting policies that help minimize the rates of smoking in the United States and globally. The reason for concern is due to the influence smoking portrays to the public and its influence on close associates with smokers. These effects are felt on pregnant women, young children, and men, whether passive or active smokers (Jamal et al. 53). There is, therefore, a need to come up with measures or interventions that will promote healthy living, such as banning smoking or regulating smoking to ensure that its effects are addressed partially or completely. These interventions might include policies or laws that govern smokers, protecting the passive as well as the environment, both physical and the working environment. Proponents will always stand with advocacies that encourage the banning of tobacco, which is used in making these cigarettes.
Additionally, in efforts to reduce the effects of smoking, the government needs to intervene. The intervention should be directed towards reducing the health impacts associated with smoking, such as slowing the growing health epidemics. More precisely, there is a need to develop control strategies that help minimize the global deaths that are expected to rise with the trends in smoking. Research by the National Library of Medicine predicts that by the year 2030, will be over 10 million annually (Sandford, 2003). Therefore, in order to reduce the risks and lower these prediction numbers, there needs to reach a sustainable agreement to reduce smoking rates. The public needs to adopt comprehensive tobacco control, ranging from a total ban on tobacco advertisements and promotions. Another control should include restricting smoking in public places and workplaces, increasing taxation on tobacco and its products, and including bold health warnings on tobacco consumption. Moreover, the proponents encourage the public to embrace smoking cessation and conduct education campaigns and tobacco regulation to standards acceptable by the community health department and not those from the smoke industry (Sandford, 2003). Legislations need to be based on voluntary controls to successfully implement measures that would gain support from the public and ensure proper enforcement.
The debate on banning tobacco is highly controversial, and the opposing side has a great deal to present concerning this issue. Indeed there feeling is that banning tobacco would not result in the prevention of smoking, but instead, the establishment of laws against smoking will be activation to the black market rise. The formulation of laws against tobacco will spread tobacco products into the states and cities illegally. Just to point out, the ban will stir up the prosperity of criminal organizations, such as the mafia and illegal gangs, which make a profit from tobacco sales, alcohol as well as other illicit substance to the users (Nuyts et al. 67). Without any single doubt, an increase in illegal activities translates to an increase in criminal activities, which has far-reaching implications to the general state, and the effects are felt countrywide, even globally. Additionally, the growing levels of illicit tobacco markets cause competition among the gangs, who lack a means of solving their differences amicably, thus resulting in violence and deaths. We can thus, state that the ban on tobacco will not be an adequate solution to smoking; instead, the creation of profitable terms would benefit the black market.
There are tangible examples of trials to ban tobacco from preventing smoking, which turned to be unsuccessful. In the United States, the federal government opted for a ban on the production and sale of alcohol in the 1920s, which failed terribly. Indeed, people had access to the prohibited substance through illegal sellers and cartels. Although the ban had been legislated, it was repealed after thirteen years of failure and inefficiency (McGirr 207). The law had more limitations in many perspectives, such as the lack of adequate measures that would help stop the spread of alcohol. Both alcohol and tobacco are substances used across the US with shared characteristics; thus, possible to compare the intention to ban tobacco by federal law. In the same way, the ban on tobacco would be an ineffective way of reducing the number of smokers.
Additionally, it is important to weigh a decision in multiple dimensions before moving forward. Indeed, the prohibition of smoking directly translates to the decrease in revenue gained by the government from the production and sale of cigarettes. According to Statista, in 2019 only, revenue from the sale of tobacco amounted to 12.46 billion US dollars, which is a highly significant value to the GDP of the country (Fouad et al. 82). Therefore, legislation banning the production of tobacco and the sale of cigarettes means that the country's economy will drop significantly. Moreover, the closure of factories that produce tobacco will directly result in tax growth to cater to incurred losses. With these underlying implications, banning tobacco production would force the government to legitimize the production activity to boost the country's economic status or the states.
Following the impacts associated with the ban of tobacco, there are many negativities as opposed to positivity. Banning smoking would sound like a violation of personal freedom and liberty, as it is argued that people need the autonomy to decide on the nature of life they would prefer living. Therefore, whether to stop smoking or not should be a personal decision or choice and not guided by legislation. Moreover, the legislation put in place is not sensible enough in stopping smokers, as they primarily focus on requests. They tell people to leave smoking, and the penalties for not leaving are highly favorable; therefore, these policies lack enough glimpse to make people stop smoking. Bearing in mind that banning smoking greatly impacts the efforts to ban smoking, the decision to either stop or continue smoking is left at a personal level (Gocmen 448a). The role of the legislating body should now be exclusively providing awareness on the side effects of tobacco on health and overall well-being and not banning the production.
The controversy on whether to ban tobacco or to keep it will not leave the debating arena soon. Indeed, more and more groups will always try to weigh out the advantages and challenges of smoking. Based on the healthy and the environmental impacts of smoking cigarettes, there will always a group that supports the ban of tobacco production. Similarly, another group will always argue that the burn of smoking will not prevent smoking, based on the facts concerning black markets and the collapse of the economic sector. Thus both preventing smoking and encouraging smoking will always cause problems. The only sure way to address tobacco is sensitization to improve awareness concerning the adverse effects of tobacco on health and well-being and thus encourage conscious smoking sensation.
Works Cited
Fouad, Heba, et al. "Estimated and projected prevalence of tobacco smoking in males, Eastern Mediterranean Region, 2000-2025." Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal 27.1 (2021): 76-82.
Gocmen, Semire Uzun. "Introduction of a Cigarette Smoking Cessation Strategy:‘Semire Uzun Gocmen Model’in Smoking Quitting." Biophysical Journal 116.3 (2019): 448a-449a.
Jamal, Ahmed, et al. "Current cigarette smoking among adults—United States, 2016." Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 67.2 (2018): 53.
Kim, A., et al. "Exposure to second-hand smoke and risk of cancer in never smokers: a meta-analysis of epidemiologic studies." International journal of environmental research and public health 15.9 (2018): 1981.
Laverty, Anthony A., et al. "Impact of banning smoking in cars with children on exposure to second-hand smoke: a natural experiment in England and Scotland." Thorax 75.4 (2020): 345-347.
McGirr, Lisa. "Alcohol Prohibition in the United States, 1920–1933, and Its Legacies." Dual Markets. Springer, Cham, 2017. 207-219.
Nuyts, Paulien AW, et al. "How can a ban on tobacco sales to minors be effective in changing smoking behaviour among youth?—A realist review." Preventive medicine 115 (2018): 61-67.
