Smoking Prohibition

1487 Words3 Pages

“…..Nearly half the adult population regularly performs a bizarre act which is necessary neither for the maintenance of life nor for the satisfaction of social, sexual, cultural, or spiritual needs; an act which is acknowledged, even by its adherents, to be harmful to health and even distasteful” (Aston and Stepney 1982: VII). Regarding the above statement a vast majority of anti-smoking campaigners believe that the restriction on smoking in public locations should be increased and effective actions should be taken by governments in order to reduce the consumption of tobacco. On the other hand, addicted smokers consider smoking prohibition as interference in their civil freedom. Though they argue that they have the right to smoke whenever and wherever they want; governments consider passive smoking’s threats as a major priority to deal with. This essay will discuss the policies taken by governments to decrease or even stop smoking among the public. Moreover, it will present smoker’s arguments regarding their right to smoke in public places.

Passive smoking also known as second hand smoking is one of the major reasons of smoking restrictions in public places. It can be defined as inhalation of someone else’s smoke implicitly. It occurs when smoke infuses in the air, making people around to breathe it indirectly. The first global study into the effects of passive smoking was carried out by world health organization (WHO) in 2004 among 192 countries. The study found that, passive smoking kills around 600,000 humans worldwide every year, in which more than 34% are children and decreases the life expectancy by 10 years. The study concluded that passive smoking is responsible for majority of heart diseases, asthma, respiratory ill...

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...kes it quite hard for both parties to find a way from this calamity. There are a number of different way outs for both governments and smokers to give up smoking. Governments should try to make new polices against smoking, and correspondingly smokers should try to help their selves to leave up this nasty habit.

Bibliography

MARSH, A. and MCKAY, S. (1994) Poor Smokers. 1st. ed. Great Britain: Bourne Press.

ASHTON, H. and STEPNEY, R. (1982) Smoking Psychology and Pharmacology. 1st. ed. Great Britain: Cambridge University press.

Smoking Act 2003: Chapter 206 [online] POST 1996

Available at ; http://www.parliament.uk/documents/post/pn206.pdf

[Accessed 8th July, 2011]

Available from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11844169

[Accessed 3rd July, 2011]

Available from: http://www.patient.co.uk/health/Smoking-The-Facts.htm

[Accessed 4th July, 2011]

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