Dr. Ken Denson is a respected doctor in the medical community and well known for his invention of the INR system and Factor X. (The INR system is for out-patients monitoring their blood. Factor X is an enzyme involved in the coagulation of blood, and part of the INR system.) He is not funded by nor receives any money from tobacco companies, yet he is a strong supporter of smoking. He says “Smokers have the most atrocious lifestyles, but otherwise healthy smokers in my opinion live longer than non-smokers. What a terrible mistake the medical establishment has made.” He believes that the lifestyles led by smokers are much different than those of nonsmokers. Smokers tend not to eat balanced meals or exercise as frequently as nonsmokers do. He …show more content…
Nicotine is highly addictive, which is one of the reasons why it is so dangerous. The nicotine withdrawals a person might go through can be one of the biggest reasons they cannot/will not quit. Smokers may know the dangers it causes, but have too much difficulty quitting and it is no longer an option for them. They may decide to continue smoking, accepting the risks simply because of the psychological and physical traumas quitting takes them through. One of the employees fired by Weyco in Michigan due to its ban on smoking, Cara Stiffler, spoke out about the policy. She strongly disagrees with the ban and she believes that quitting smoking is a fight about personal liberty. She says “I want to quit, but I want it to be on my terms, not someone forcing me to make that …show more content…
There are many cities who have implemented bans on cigarettes, but China overall is still the leading consumer of cigarettes in the world. A countrywide tax on cigarettes has been proposed to their Ministry of Finance, and Ministry of Economics and Trade, but a decision has yet to be made. Tobacco production provides substantial revenue to the government and a tax increase will have a significant effect on the central government and reduction of consumption of cigarettes. According to a study done by the group proposing the tax, “a 25% tax increase will have an overall monetary benefit that far exceeds the negative impact on the cigarette industry and tobacco farmers. In financial terms alone, not counting the number of lives saved and medical care cost savings, the gain of the central government tax revenue (24.58 billion Yuan) twice exceeds the loss of tobacco farmers’ earnings, tobacco industry workers’ earning and loss of industry and local government revenue (11.74 billion Yuan)” (Hu TW 107). There many components to this calculation, but some factors included the reduction of cigarette consumption, the number of lives saved, savings in medical care costs, gains in productivity due to avoidance of premature death, industry revenue lost, lost jobs in cigarette industry, loss of tobacco income, and loss of local government
According to “The Action of Smoking and Health,” every six seconds someone loses their life as a result of a tobacco related disease. It’s hard to realize how damaging cigarette smoking’s effect can be until you experience it first hand. It is almost certain that every one knows someone who is currently a smoker or was a smoker at some point in their life. For years smoking was the seen as the “cool” thing to do, it was how to “fit in.” There was no real emphasis placed on the dangers of this particular habit, and as a result, it became a world wide trend. In the past, technology and medicine were not nearly advanced enough to be able to determine just how harmful tobacco usage is. However, as we have made medical and
Nicotine is addictive! Most smokers use tobacco regularly because they are addicted to the nicotine. You can be addicted to the nicotine in a physical and physological addiction. Addiction is characterized by compulsive drug seeking and use, even if they are in the risk of health problems. It is well documented that most smokers identify tobacco as harmful and express a desire to reduce or stop using it, and nearly 35 million of them make a serious attempt to quit. Unfortunately, 7% of those who try to quit in their own achieve more than 1 year of abstinence; most relapse within a few days of trying to quit. Some of the other factors besides nicotine addictive properties include its high level of availability, the small number of legal consequences of using the tobacco, and the advertising methods used by companies. What most people do not realize is that the
Dr. David L. Katz, A clinical professor of public health, and director of the prevention research center at Yale University School of Medicine expresses his opinion on public smoking in the following passage.
History has proven that government penalties, in the form of taxes, deter smoking. The 2000 U.S. Surgeon General’s Report, Reducing Tobacco Use, found that raising tobacco-product prices decreases the prevalence of tobacco use, and tobacco tax increases produce significant long-term improvements in health. From its review of existing research, the report concluded that raising tobacco taxes is one of the most effective tobacco prevention and control strategies (7). Along with price increases, mass-media campaigns and smoking bans have made cigarette smoking pretty much unacceptable in today’s society. “Today, approximately 22 percent of adults age twenty-two and older are smokers, compared with 33 percent in 1979” (Thorpe 1440). It is clear, from these examples, the use of penalties to deter the unhealthy behavior of smoking is a successful intervention.
Government passed a law making cigarettes illegal would have numerous results. First, making cigarettes illegal means people will smoke les cigarettes. Therefore, smoking people can be healthier, leading to a longer life span. Second, illegalize smoking would also causing black markets. Because cigarette is addictive, people who smoke would do anything to get cigarettes, black market would cause crime rate to rise. Third, government will receive no taxes from cigarette industry due to the illegalizing of it. This will cause the government get less money can provide poor service. Forth, because of the illegalization, tobacco farmers will lose their jobs. Furthermore, there would be idle
With many decades worth of health data now available, it has never been clearer that smoking is one of the most dangerous habits a person can engage in. It is no wonder, then, that so many smokers are committed to quitting and improving their health.
Smoking is injurious to health and a preventable cause of premature death. In the U.S.; it is estimated that one in each five adults smoke currently and about 480,000 people die prematurely from diseases caused by smoking or secondhand smoke exposure. (CDC tobacco use). The economic burden of tobacco use is also significant. About $100 billion per year is spent in medical expenses and another $100 billion per year in lost productivity. There is no safe level of smoking
For over 50 years, the Surgeon General has been warning about the dangers of tobacco use and smoking. The most recent report, The Health Consequences of Smoking—50 Years of Progress: A Report of the Surgeon General, offers information and statistics related to the monetary costs and physical dangers of smoking. Although the number of people who smoke has declined, if the current rates remain the same, nearly 6 million Americans who are alive today and under the age of 18 will die prematurely from a disease related to smoking. Additionally, half of the people today who continue to smoke will die prematurely due to a smoking-related condition.
As the world population increases in size and age, there will also naturally be an increase in the absolute numbers of deaths. There are enormous economic consequences of NCDs due to the combined burden of health care costs and economic productivity lost including illness and premature deaths. Ethnic variations in susceptibility to disease are also concerns. For example, there is an increased risk of stroke in East Asian populations and increased risk of coronary heart disease in South Asians2. East Asia is one of the world’s largest tobacco epidemic regions3. This paper will specifically examine South Korea and how the tobacco industry contributes to the development of NCDs. The population-based policy intervention of increasing taxation of tobacco products will be reviewed.
In the article ‘Cigarette tax hike sparks panic buying’, Hall (2010) discusses the effects of tax increase on cigarettes. The government has decided to raise the tax on cigarettes by 25%, costing $2.16 more on a pack of 30 cigarettes. This government intervention is an attempt to stop people from smoking and reduce the health bill caused by those who smoke. The increase in tax is expected to save $5 billion more of the people’s tax dollars and the government decided that it will be put into a better use for its health and hospitals reparations. This contractionary fiscal policy is expected to reduce the total tobacco consumption by approximately six percent and drive down the number of smokers by 87,000.
There is no physical abnormality nor biological reason that causes an individual to start smoking nicotine products. I feel as though the decision to begin the use of nicotine products is a result of natural/personal failings and nothing more. Whether the decision to start smoking was influenced by peer pressure, curiosity, or personal desire, it was still that individual’s conscious choice to start using the products. This condition has been publicly framed as a medical issue because the repetitive use of nicotine is habit forming and once established is hard to quit. However, I argue that it should not be framed this way because it can be identified as deviant behavior or as a social problem that is not due to any type of biological reason. By inappropriately labeling nicotine dependence we de-stigmatize the choice that the individual chose to make and open them to the sick role. The availability of the sick role to these individuals produces opportunities for it to be abused. For example, it is common for heavy smokers to get multiple smoke breaks during their work shift, while non-smokers are only permitted to a single break; causing a difference in wages earned despite that the smokers worked a lesser amount of time. Because they have been granted the sick role, they are temporarily excused
to another. Studies show that almost all kinds of stress leads to a blood sugar
The government in my country passed a law making cigarettes illegal would have numerous results. First, it would cause many people to lose their jobs because of the collapse of the cigarette factories. People who lose jobs will become poor and it will led to country has a lot of stress because the government need to spend great efforts to help these poor people. We all know that the size of cigarette factories is very large and cigarette factories are very influential because it can develop the local economy. Also, the government lets cigarette productions become illegal will cause the country’s economic development in a bad tendency due to cigarette factories are spread all over the
China has the largest population of smokers and this may be because the citizens of China are unaware of the negative effects cigarette use has on one’s health. Despite external intervention by the World Health Organization, China has neglected to place warning labels on cigarette packages. I believe this is because of the power the Chinese tobacco companies have over the government. Globalization and the cigarette trade with Japan Tobacco may have also contributed to the misinformed Chinese populous. It has been stated that money is the root of all evil, and in this case, the economic benefits are outweighing the health of Chinese citizens. “…1 billion tobacco-related deaths are predicted to occur during the 21st century” (He et. all 2010). These lives lost due to tobacco use will continue to exist and may increase. The only way to reduce these alarming statistics is for the Chinese government and governments around the world to begin informing their citizens of the dangers of
On September 11, the government had announced agenda that tobacco’s price will be increasing about 1000-2000 won. 6 months ago, the government formulated policy which is increasing tobacco price and they concluded increasing taxes which is contained in tobaccos. This agenda is being discussed plan of tobacco price increase and it is going to increase taxes step by step concerning people’s economic burdens.