13 CommentsNews, Science

smoking-acneSmoking is a process in which tobacco is burned and the smoke is tasted and inhaled. It is one of the most common forms of recreational drug use. For this reason, about one-third of adult males smoke globally and about 15 billion cigarettes are sold daily, which equates to 10 million sold each minute.  There have been extensive studies performed on the effects of smoking. With this information readily available, the number of smokers in the U.S. has decreased dramatically. Since 1965, the percentage of adults smoking has dropped from 42% to 19% in 2010.

Although this may be true, tobacco is still the leading cause of preventable illness and death in America. It increases the risk of deadly ailments such as coronary heart disease, stroke, and lung cancer. Not only does smoking affect the individual, but those around him as well. Four million people are affected each year by secondhand smoke, which is tobacco smoke unintentionally inhaled. While only 6.3% of deaths in America are caused by opposing factors, 17.9% are caused by smoking (first and secondhand). This epidemic does not come without a price. The government has currently spent $203.58 billion on prevention, while taxpayers have accumulated a total of $70.7 billion.

References:

1. This link contains a compilation of the worldwide smoking statistics for the year 2002 done by The World Health Organization. Includes statistics on adults, youth, health, and advertising.
https://www.verywell.com/global-smoking-statistics-for-2002-2824393

2. This is a list of countries by annual per capita consumption of tobacco cigarettes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_cigarette_consumption_per_capita

3. This is a link to the history of cigarette smoking in the United States.
http://cancercontrol.cancer.gov/brp/tcrb/monographs/8/m8_2.pdf

4. This link outlines the many effects of tobacco smoke.
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/tobacco/statisticssnapshot

5. Smoking harms nearly every organ of the body. It causes many diseases and reduces the health of smokers in general, as discussed on this informative site
http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/health_effects/effects_cig_smoking/index.htm[/column]

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6. This report describes everything about smoking, from behavioral changes, to therapy, to nicotine patches.
http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/specialtopic/smoking-and-smokeless-tobacco/print.html

7. This article shows the health effects of exposure to secondhand smoke.
http://www.epa.gov/smokefre/healtheffects.html

8. This article shows how one city improved its health by enforcing smoking bans.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/health/research/13prev.html?pagewanted=print

9. The research in this article, carried out by scientists at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., found a 33 percent drop in heart attack rates in one Minnesota county after public smoking bans were enacted.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/29/a-smoke-free-workplace-means-fewer-heart-attacks/?ref=health&pagewanted=print

10. A new study shows that longtime smokers can expect to lose about 10 years of life expectancy.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/23/putting-a-number-to-smokings-toll/?pagewanted=print

11.  This website shows general information on smoking and was used to find statistics on number of deaths caused by smoking.
http://www.cdc.gov/DataStatistics/

12. This article shows the toll of tobacco in the United States.
http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/research/factsheets/pdf/0072.pdf

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Questions and Answer:

Q: What are the health effects of smoking?

A:

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Q: Does smoking affect others around you?

A: Secondhand Smoking Effects

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Results of studies taken after smoking bans were placed in certain cities:

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Q: How much money is spent on smoking for an individual?

A:

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Comments (13)

  1. Jennifer Cardoza

    Reply

    As we’ve learned through IMT, laws that would ban smoking would not help prevention and would only create more risk. I believe campaigns providing information to the public of prevention and the consequences of tobacco have already proved to be successful, as seen in the decreasing statistic of 42% of the adult population smoking to 19%. I personally believe that after another generation, there will be much closer to 0% of the population smoking since it is the generation that grew up learning the negative effects of smoking and tobacco.

  2. Rizwan Assainar

    Reply

    Like I see in one of the comments that, Yes, smoking is a personal choice. No one can control their choices and it is their interests. But, the unfortunate fact is they are being blind by not seeing the consequences, if not theirs at least the people around them. I asked my smoking friends, why do they want to smoke? Few said just for pleasure, others just to show that they smoke and few others to reduce tension. Is it? Does it actually reduce tension? What they are doing, is to reduce the short term tension and they are blind about the long term side effects. Awareness programs indeed required to reduce smoking!

  3. Matthew Langford

    Reply

    I believe that the best way to work towards decreasing the amount of smokers is to educate more of the risks of smoking and to help those that do smoke to quit. Any sort of banning of cigarettes will only bring more negative consequences. If we were to ban cigarettes, we would most likely find people searching for alternative methods to feed their addiction that would have more of a negative impact than normal smoking would.

  4. Haitham

    Reply

    Smoking is one of the biggest concerns that causes deaths. However smoking is still legal in many countries. There is no being fits of smoking, it cause many diseases or may be death. Also it is wast of money. In my opinion smoking should be illegal.

  5. Mohammad Shaikh

    Reply

    A staggering 15 billion cigarettes are sold on a daily basis—this enormous amount is scary and speaks detrimentally about the health of our nation. Instead of focusing on banning cigarettes, money should be put on preventing smoking in the first place and aiding smokers to quit. There should be no reason for people to smoke; the side effects are well known and smoking results in a straight, quick path to one place—death. Cities that have banned smoking have shown a shockingly reduced number of heart attacks. This ban has held so far as smokers have a hard time finding available smoking zones. The money factor should be enough to stop smoking, because the $15,000 to $20000 that is spent on smoking is about the same amount spent on down payment of houses.

  6. Isaac Martinez

    Reply

    Once again, dominant information! I believe this was one of the first topics we covered in class; furthermore, dominant information is more or less at the core of the IMT doctrine. Not a single good thing comes from the habit of smoking; I mean you never come across an article or news expose that informs the public that new research reveals smoking could be beneficial for you. Quite the opposite, we are always hearing how detrimental smoking is; not just that but how exposure to second hand smoke can potentially be even more dangerous. Individuals that smoke are definitely looking through type “C” lenses. One of my favorite things about smokers though, is when they say…”I’m trying to quite, but I just can’t. Wrong! They are choosing not to.

  7. Saransh Prasad

    Reply

    With all the dominant information how can people still be so blind to the ill effects of smoking. Given its effects and knowing that smoking is the root cause of the effects its like committing suicide. If one were to say that banning smoking would help the cause then it would have been done so long back but then like illegal bootlegging and drug abuse, smoking too would have been all the more rampant. Just like controlled hunting of animals has had a positive effect on the numbers of the endangered species so are the taxes levied on smoking having a positive impact on the overall scenario. It has led to a decrease in the number of smokers as well as helped in bringing down the numbers of associated health problems to people around. It might take time but the consistent efforts on behalf of the government and the others will surely help people see the obvious side effects and help them quit the habit.

  8. Misharr Rutnagar

    Reply

    Tobacco smoking has uncountable circumstances. Some being infections and disease the others being inconvenience and irritations. Smoking tobacco indicates the violations of several IMT theories.

    These could namely be distinguished as:
    1. Being controlled by a drug (Right sided)
    2. Not perceiving the available information (Right sided)
    3. Not realizing the big picture circumstances of this addiction (Right sided)
    4. Slow to act and improve upon this addiction (“Type C”)

    I totally believe what countries like the UK and India are doing is fully justified. The health ministries for these countries have banned smoking in restaurants, bars and other such public areas. Leaving the smokers to resort to certain “Smoking Zones” only. These zones help segregate these people. If they do not obey this law there is a heavy penalty for the violations. The segregation helps those individuals who were suffering from second hand smoking. I believe more countries should follow in these footsteps and lead there citizens to a safer environment.

  9. Vahid

    Reply

    When I was reading this article, (and probably every time I see someone smoking from now on) the first thing that comes to my mind is the picture of Dr. Kashiwagi covering his eyes with his hands, showing us how we are surrounded by blind people who do not see the dominant information. I mean this smoking issue is probably the most obvious example of IMT concept: There are abundant “dominant information” already published about what different kinds of consequences smoking could lead to; And then there are millions of “blind” people not willing to “see” the facts around smoking. So, now why people do smoke in spite of all these terrible consequences that everyone knows about? Statistics show that addiction is playing a major role to “blind” people or to make them “make decision” which increases the risk! A high life-threatening risk!

  10. Branden Lau

    Reply

    In addition to the previous comment, I think that smoking is a way to differentiate Type A vs. Type C people because of their perception of information. Type A people will perceive the risks of smoking and will have enough foresight of the dangers to deter them from smoking, while Type C people may not have this foresight. Furthermore, Type C people may not realize that they have more control over themselves than they think that they do, for instance, they may have little control over their emotions or stress level, which causes them to smoke.

  11. Michael Bradley

    Reply

    “Four million people are affected each year by secondhand smoke, which is tobacco smoke unintentionally inhaled.”
    This. I agree with this article and in my opinion, this issue relates to IMT because people who smoke are not as proficient as perceiving new information. Even if there is a lot of information available about all the adverse effects of smoking, they just seem to ignore it and continue thinking smoking is good because it makes them feel good?
    There is also the idea that the reason smoking feels so good is because it causes a physical change causing a dependency/addiction. There are many forms of pleasure that can occur without such a large-scale change that also has adverse effects.
    Most people I know who smoke seem to fit in with type C characteristics and tend to not be nice on top of that (after all they already don’t seem to care how they’re affecting other people, in fact I’ve only even seen one person who smokes out of probably thousands who made any effort to control the smoke and avoid blowing it at other people).

  12. Marlynn Radford-Brown

    Reply

    There is no entity to represent smokers.
    Currently, there exists no data on the psychological benefits to smoking.
    Smoking is a choice, just as not smoking is also a choice.
    Per the statistics, why not just make smoking illegal?
    Smokers have rights too, but their rights are not considered.
    Dis-ease is usually caused by a life imbalance and a misaligned mental state, yet that aspect is not considered.
    The US policy on legal and illegal drug use is hypocritical

  13. Wessam Saleeb

    Reply

    Tobacco facts
    Tobacco use is one of the biggest public health threats the world has ever faced
    There are more than one billion smokers in the world, about one third of the global population aged 15 years and over
    Globally, use of tobacco products is increasing, although it is decreasing in high-income countries
    Almost half of the world’s children breathe air polluted by tobacco smoke
    The epidemic is shifting to the developing world
    More than 80% of the world’s smokers live in low- and middle-income countries
    Tobacco use kills 5.4 million people a year – an average of one person every six seconds – and accounts for one in 10 adult deaths worldwide
    Tobacco kills up to half of all users
    It is a risk factor for six of the eight leading causes of deaths in the world
    100 million deaths were caused by tobacco in the 20th century. If current trends continue, there will be up to one billion deaths in the 21st century
    Unchecked, tobacco-related deaths will increase to more than eight million a year by 2030, and 80% of those deaths will occur in the developing world
    Source: WHO

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