Why Should Smoking Be Banned

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Could you imagine a world without secondhand smoke, harmful effects to the environment, and a world that is more supportive of quitting smoking? As impossible as it seems, it’s actually not as far out of our grasp as you may think. Over the course of this paper I will be arguing for smoking to be completely banned in public places because of the numerous health concerns as well as environmental hazards. To smokers this may seem as an attack on their freedoms. By banning public smoking we are removing their freedoms so to speak. The point isn’t to remove freedoms from anyone, but to avoid imposing our choices, such as how we handle our health, on others. Smoking is a serious health risk for smokers and non-smokers alike. While it is unrealistic for smoking to be completely banned anytime soon, I don’t think banning smoking in public is out of our reach. It isn’t legal for people to go around killing each other, so why should smokers be able to affect non-smokers with secondhand smoke, which has the same effect? While comparing smoking to murder may seem a bit extreme, I believe it helps emphasize just how bad secondhand smoke and smoking in general really is. Smoking should be banned in public because of secondhand smoke, environmental damage, and it would influence people to stop smoking.
In the following paragraph we are going to dig a little deeper into some statistics about smoking to give a little background for the presented argument. According to a 2012 study by the Center for Disease Control (CDC), Cigarette smoking is the number one cause of preventable death in the U.S. racking in around 480,000 deaths a year or roughly one in five deaths accounted for in the U.S. per year. Smoking in a general perspective, has been perc...

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...society we need laws that protect the 82% of Americans who don’t smoke instead of giving the 18% of Americans the convenience of smoking where they please. I’ve discussed the second and thirdhand smoking effects as well the environmental effects, and I’ve shown just how bad smoking can be for those who don’t even smoke. Clearly a society without public smoking would decrease the amount of smokers. Even if we could just stop public smoking think of all the positive effects it could have on the environment and the health of everyone. If we can get public smoking banned then someday we may be able to ban smoking altogether, maker our Earth cleaner and our bodies healthier. Hopefully after reading this essay you are more understanding of why smoking in public needs to be banned. After all is smoking really worth killing your loved ones by exposing them to deadly toxins?

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