WE THE FUTURE Blog: No Smoking, Please
For years we have been told that smoking is harmful for our health, yet people continue to smoke. You would think all the statistics would scare people from smoking, after all who wants a black lung? Personally, I think the warning labels on cigarettes need to be larger and make the consequences clearer. A larger label would be more noticeable and possibly make people think twice about smoking.
All statistics say that smoking is bad. According the CDC in 2007 nearly 20% of high school students smoked cigarettes. Of that 20%, 60% of those students had tried to quit smoking, but only 12% were actually able to quit. These students probably didn’t realize they were ruining their lives. Just this year a boy in my class decided to start smoking. In the short amount of time he has been smoking I’ve noticed that he has a constant cough, dusty skin and can be really irritable. He has developed a dependence on cigarettes and will even sneak out of class to go smoke in his car. Smoking has truly changed him and now all he can think about is when he is going to get another cigarette. Maybe if someone had sat him down and told him everything he was going to possibly face just so he could look cool he wouldn’t have started smoking.
Smoking creates both short term and long term health issues. In the long run smoking affects all of your organs, not just your lungs. Many smokers also have issues with chronic inflammation, a weaker immune system and it can really affect a person’s voice. Smokers also are infamous for their “smokers cough”, which is a deep bark that is incurable unless the person stops smoking. Those are just a few of the list of side effects on a list miles long which even includes cancer and death.
Australia recently tried to revamp their cigarette cartons to feature more noticeable warnings. (See below) These new warnings were to cover the entire carton, the new carton showed lungs sickened with cancer from smoking. I don’t know about you, but seeing that picture would surely scare me from buying and smoking cigarettes. Unfortunately the labels weren’t ever used and we may never know if they would actually lower the amount of people smoking.
Tobacco kills, end of story. We need to help those who are hooked break their addictions. Encourage the ones you know and love to stop smoking and finally get a breath of fresh air.
Breathe Freely,
Summer
