Smoking

Recently the government has had a major crackdown on smoking cigarettes with the “smoking ban” in public places in 2006, and the raising of the legal age to buy tobacco from sixteen to eighteen in 2007. There are also many high profile campaigns on TV to persuade to quit, but are any of these moves actually successful?

The raising of the smoking age to eighteen has had a lot of critics. This makes the age of smoking higher than the age that you can willingly join the army. It is as though the government doesn’t want children to die of lung cancer but doesn’t mind them being shot at in Iraq.

Smoking in pubs being band in 2006 as well as supermarkets selling alcohol a lot cheaper than in pubs has been accused of causing a decline in the amount of people going, and causing many pubs and clubs to be shut down. There seems to be little advantage in going to a pub when you can bring friends over to your home, spend maybe even less than half the money and smoke inside rather than having to stand out in the rain. In fact there are some pubs which are charging 50p to smokers who go outside for a cigarette.

There are many reasons why people smoke, whilst researching this I found many patronising articles about peer pressure and wanting to look grown up, but this doesn’t include people over the age of nineteen or twenty who take up smoking. There is also the reason which many of the websites fail to acknowledge, the fact that smoking is kinda “cool.” I mean there’s something admirable about smoking, you’re doing something that might make you die and you don’t care.

Also however much we hate to admit it people are influenced by famous people, further making smoking “fashionable.” The alleged list of famous smokers includes Christina Aguilera and Brad Pitt, people are told every day by magazines to aspire to be like them, but for some reason this can’t include smoking. Maybe magazines who sell their lifestyles should stop selling other aspects, such as their penchant for designer clothes or their hair to impressionable people.

But tobacco has its good points, for example with taxes, the large amount of tax that smokers have to pay on cigarettes would have to be found from elsewhere if everybody stopped smoking. Also in a more morbid way smoking is said to cause premature death which would be good for the companies who employ the people as they would have to pay them less pension, something which has been quite prevalent in the news after pension funds cannot cope with people’s high life expectancy.

In the end smoking in a way has its good and bad points and whether it will be eradicated totally is something for debate, people will always be the ones who ultimately choose whether they smoke or not. The public will have the final say.


References

British Ban Indoor Smoking
Cowell, A. (2006). British Ban Indoor Smoking. Available: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/15/international/europe/15britain.html?_r=2. Last accessed 2 March 2009.

Smoking Age Increased
. (2007). Smoking age increased . Available: http://www.inthenews.co.uk/news/property/health/smoking-age-increased-$1141909.htm. Last accessed 2 March 2009.

Cigarette-buying age rise backed
. (2007). Cigarette-buying age rise backed. Available: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6222785.stm. Last accessed 2 March 2009.

Why do people smoke?
. (2004). Smoking and Cancer: Why do people smoke?. Available: http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/healthyliving/smokingandtobacco/whydopeoplesmoke/. Last accessed 2 March 2009.

Worlds most famous smokers
. (2007). The worlds most famous smokers. Available: http://worldrec.info/2007/09/27/the-worlds-most-famous-smokers. Last accessed 2 March 2009.

Charging to smoke outside
Coyle, M. (2009). Time in Bangor charges 50p to smoke. Available: http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/2009/03/02/time-in-bangor-charge-50p-to-smoke-55578-23039976/. Last accessed 2 March 2009.

Good Points of Smoking
. ( ). Good Points of Smoking. Available: http://muscul.az.free.fr/uk/lexic/fumer2.htm. Last accessed 2 March 2009.