The Positive Effects of Tobacco

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Everyday occurrences in our life become normal we don’t take a second glance. We are surrounded by smoking day to day everywhere we go even if we don’t smoke it affects us. It has been in our society for generations. Families have grown up with family members that smoke or even smoking themselves. Smoking is a large part of our society spending billions while boosting the economy with sales and ads; in the midst of so much negativity surrounding smoking which is it good or bad? We hear the negatives all the time but upsides to smoking are never discussed.

Tobacco and smoking were not always used how they are today. Back around 600 to 900 A.D. many cultures grew tobacco and Native Americans would smoke and use it within religious ceremonies and for medical uses (History of Tobacco). Toward the middle of the 1800’s American’s started to smoke tobacco occasionally either from a pipe or a cigarette; not like people smoke today was very occasional stated in the History of Tobacco. The first main stream production of cigarettes began in 1865 but were made for soldiers in the Civil War. In 1881 that is when business picked up and everyone started smoking more frequently due to the mass amount of cigarettes being produced and the access to them (History of Tobacco).

Since cigarettes have only been around for a little over a hundred years it was very new. Most people smoking cigarettes were not aware that there could be hazardous chemicals within cigarettes. In the mid 1980’s people were informed that cigarettes were not safe and actually very harmful to one’s health. Surgeon’s general warnings started to show up on every box of cigarettes, that is when the dissentient really started to appear associated with smoking (History of Tobacco). Today it seems like all the information about smoking is out. Smoking tobacco is today’s preventable leading cause of disease and death in the United States; killing up to 440,000 people in the U.S. per year due to tobacco related illnesses. Above the Influence stated there is tar, nicotine, carbon monoxide, and up to 200 more known poisons contained within cigarettes that we know of today (Tobacco Facts).

Some positives that come with individuals being able to smoke; tax produced from cigarettes helps the government and other essential programs. Funding from the tax also creates jobs within the government and programs.

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