Exposure to Secondhand Smoke Kills

Essay by ghostmaskHigh School, 11th gradeA+, May 2005

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Exposure to Second Hand Smoke

Picture sitting down for dinner at your favorite restaurant ordering your favorite dish. As the food arrives, your neighbor lights up a cigarette. The air becomes thick, making it impossible to breathe and dinner hard to enjoy. Not only is that disgusting, but it is also unhealthy and in some cases, deadly. Exposure to second hand smoke is harmful to the human body; therefore smoking should be made illegal.

Twenty or thirty years ago though, it wouldn't of crossed anyone's mind to complain about smoking in public places. Since tobacco has been considered a cash crop, for at least a decade, many people and now large corporations mass produce tobacco products. So why do people still continue to smoke if it is so harmful to their bodies? Tobacco is addicting and those who smoke either can not quit or refuse to quit. It may be deadly to smoke now but fifty years ago we didn't have the technology or research to prove that it actually was harmful to ones body.

Today smokers believe that they are only endangering themselves but really anyone who breathes the same air as the smoker is at risk. According to R.J. Reynolds, "In one month, a nonsmoker living with a smoker would breathe the equivalent of smoking one and a half cigarettes."

In 1993, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency declared second hand smoke a "Group A" carcinogen, (Stolberg). People don't realize but second hand smoke results in many diseases and illnesses. Some of those illnesses include bronchitis, pneumonia, and asthma, according to James L. Pirkle of Division of Environmental Health Laboratory Sciences. "Three thousand deaths result from Lung Cancer each year, according to the EPA, (Stolberg). As the awareness of the danger of second hand smoke arises, some companies and...