David Mikombo
PSYC 2160
Policy Paper
The companies who manufacture tobacco know that smoking leads to serious illness, which later on can cause death. According to the World Health Organization, tobacco is the second major cause of death in the United States. I think we should prevent teenagers from smoking by creating a law that will prevent them from doing so. Smoking kills nearly six million people each year. In the 20th century tobacco caused 100 million deaths, and one billion will die in the 21th century if they still continue using it. By 2030 tobacco-related death is projected to increase to more than 8 million deaths a year. Most people start smoking before the age of 18 this includes women and men. Tobacco is made with over 4,000 chemicals and at least 250 are known to be harmful and can cause cancer (CDC, 2015). Smoking can cause heart disease and strokes. Smoking damages cells that line the blood vessels, cause clots to form, and block blood flow to the heart and moreover can damage blood vessels in the brain. Tobacco users do not only affect themselves, but they also affect people around them as well. Smokers who breathe secondhand smoke have between 25-30 percent increases in the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases, which is how much smoker put other people at risk (CDC, 2015). Because of those risks my policy change idea is to create a law that will prevent teenagers from smoking, by creating stricter tobacco laws. For example, if a teenager is caught smoking especially at school they will have to do community service throughout the school year, and also by limiting the number of cigarettes sold within certain time period. By preventing them from smoking it will decrease the amount of cardiovascular cancer and decrease the death rate.
Why young children smoke first is to look cool in the eyes of their peers, and they think by smoking it makes them look more mature. They tend to smoke when they have someone in their family or just people around them who smoke and want also to experiment what is like to smoke. (Team, 2015). But it is a different story with adults who start smoking in their adulthood. Teenagers need more help, most of them do not consciously know the consequences of smoking or the effects that smoking has on their body. Teenagers are easily influenced and tend to stop something if the law reinforces it.
The cost of medical treatment or care for adults is nearly $170 billion. According to the Central for Disease Control, “More than $156 billion in lost productivity, including $5.6 billion in lost productivity due to secondhand smoke exposure”. (Federal Trade Commission Cigarette, 2015) In 2014 nearly 264 billion cigarettes were sold in the United States, but compared to 2013 the amount has decreased which is a good thing. Tobacco impacts our economy in a various ways.
Teenagers like to be free, by taking their free time away from them and making them do community service, this will discourage them from smoking. All states in the U.S have law that prohibits a person under the age of eighteen to purchase tobacco products. We might also ask ourselves how teenagers purchase these products even though the law has prohibited it. We all know that information is passed on from one person to another, so is tobacco products. One teenager gets it from his/her friend and the other friend got it from an adult who is allowed to purchase tobacco products, therefore, the cycle continues.
By limiting the amount of tobacco sold per year it will decrease the incidence of teen smoking. This in turn will make it hard for them to smoke and this will also reduce the amount of cardiovascular disease long term. By limiting the amount of tobacco sales by years it also limits and decreases the amount of death. Teenagers are the future of tomorrow; if we decrease the amount of usage of tobacco by teenagers we also decrease the amount of future teenager and adult smokers. Because tobacco is addictive, it stands to reason that the fewer people who smoke in 2015 will contribute to fewer people smoking in 2016. A pack of 20 cigarettes can cost consumers an average of $10.56, which includes federal and state taxes. Because smoking is so addictive due to it containing nicotine, which is a hard physical addiction to tackle, smokers choose to have cigarettes rather then food.
Tobacco products are one way or one of the key elements that leads a person to death. It might not seem like it at first when first start smoking but if we carefully look at the long-term consequences of smoking, such as lung, esophagus and many more cancer. Most people who started smoking at a younger age end up having multiple cardiovascular diseases and die (Isle, 2015). To prevent and reduce the amount of deaths caused by tobacco products we have to educate teenagers by showing them the bad side of smoking and how it can harm their body. By enforcing this law in schools, teenagers who are caught smoking will have to serve time in a community service throughout the school year which will help decrease the amount of teenagers smoking at school or even in public. By letting teenagers serve some community service this will help them in others areas of behavior change. Like if possible they can go serve at the cancer hospital, that will teach them not to take life for granted and actually learn something about themselves .By seeing people who are suffering in the hospital bed because of smoking, this will increase their knowledge of what they are doing to themselves and their body by smoking. It has always been said that SEEING is BELIEVEING, by them seeing people go through pain it will teach them to take care of themselves carefully and change their behavior.