Alcohol and Tobacco Control - Essay Example

? Alcohol and Tobacco Control School Alcohol and tobacco control Alcohol and tobacco control is an issue that has been heavily debated upon for a long time. It is both seen as a means of profitability for the countries, thus strengthening the economy and as a threat for the health and safety of the citizens. This paper discusses and evaluates the positive and negative implications of the alcohol and tobacco consumption upon the society. Alcohol and tobacco are sources of huge threat to the health and safety of the society and their negative implications outweigh the positive ones. Drinking alcohol and smoking are not good for health. Both expose an individual to numerous kinds of health risks. Health risks associated with drinking alcohol include but are not limited to cirrhosis, pancreatitis, hypertension, osteoporosis, and wernicke-korsakoff syndrome. Cirrhosis is a disease in which the liver is scarred and its healthy tissue is replaced with the scarred tissue. Malfunctioning of the liver caused by this causes the build-up of bile in the blood. Pancreatitis is another disease caused by drinking alcohol that causes the inflammation of pancreas. This affects insulin production, thus causing intense abdominal pain along with nausea and fever. Hypertension is a condition in which the passage of blood through the arteries can cause the arteries’ walls to rupture, thus causing stroke or heart attack. Alcohol consumption causes loss of the bone mass, a condition known as osteoporosis, thus increasing the risk of bone fracture. Wernicke-korsakoff syndrome is a brain disorder, which causes memory loss and blurred vision in the patient. Diseases caused by smoking include lungs’ cancer, oral cancer, cardiovascular diseases and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The tar contained in the tobacco deposits in the mouth, throat and lungs thus increasing the smoker’s tendency to acquire cancer. Cardiovascular diseases caused by smoking include diseases of the heart including heart attack while the chronic obstructive pulmonary disease causes obstruction in the airflow, thus causing the problems in breathing. Alcohol consumption and tobacco should be controlled in order to reduce an individual’s susceptibility of acquiring these diseases. Drinking and smoking are addictive habits. An individual who starts drinking and smoking goes a long way to reach the stage where he/she becomes a drug addict. Particularly, smoking often happens to be the first stage in the way of becoming a drug addict for many teenagers. It leads to the consumption of cocaine, marijuana and heroine in the later stages. Smoking all these drugs has potential negative implications on both the individual’s health and social life. The risks to health include all of the diseases that have been discussed before. Risks to the social life of the individual include poor academic performance, declined efficiency in work, laziness, and social exclusion. Teenagers that become drug addicts lose interest in studies. Consequentially, there academic grades start to decline. The poor academic performance has negative repercussions on the professional career of the individual as the eligibility of a candidate for a good job is directly governed by his/her past academic performance. This increases the drug addict’s risk of unemployment. In addition to that drug addicts are stigmatized and are subject to humiliation and social exclusion in the long run. Since the society does not accept them, they tend to be alone and are gradually pushed into social exclusion, in which they become depressed and may end up committing suicide. Owing to the myriad of negative effects of addiction caused by drinking and smoking, they should be prohibited. Control of alcohol and tobacco is compulsory in order to keep them out of the reach of children. Children are immature and generally unaware of the negative effects of alcohol and tobacco on their health. Even if they do know the effects, they tend to underestimate them owing to their immaturity. If alcohol and tobacco are not banned and are easily approachable for the children, they would try experimenting with them and end up becoming addicts at a very early age in life. This increases the risk for health for the children as their immunity is lesser as compared to the adults and their health is more likely to be affected by the consumption of alcohol and smoking of tobacco as compared to an adult. Owing to their immaturity, it is the moral responsibility of the adults to guide the children appropriately and keep them away from such potentially dangerous things as alcohol and tobacco. The only way to achieve this is by controlling alcohol and tobacco. Children are the future leaders of the society. This means that we are losing future leaders by getting our children lost in the way of drug addicting by not controlling alcohol and tobacco. Drinking and smoking negatively affect an individual’s genes. Not only the body is affected, but also the genes take the impact of alcohol and tobacco. The alcohol metabolism has a huge impact on an individual’s drinking behavior as well as the risk of alcoholism (Yin and Agarwal, 2001), which imparts a need to understand the impact of alcohol consumption on genes. “[T]here are numerous coding and noncoding variations in the ADH genes, at least some of which can affect risk for alcoholism” (Edenberg, 2007, p. 11). Likewise, maternal smoking has many negative effects on the child. Particularly, smoking during pregnancy leads to a decline in the birth-weight of the infant and may also cause perinatal mortality. “After controlling for race, maternal age, education, parity, and number of cigarettes smoked, we found that 85% of the increased mortality due to smoking was attributable to an excess of small births” (English and Eskenazi, 1992). This means that infants have to bear the effects of maternal alcohol consumption and smoking on their life, which is not just. In order to protect the infants and future generation from the genetic influences of parental drinking and smoking, it is imperative that alcohol and tobacco are controlled. Smoking and drinking affect an individual’s relations with peers and friends in many negative ways. People tend to be distant from and draw away from the drug addicts. Many people do not like to socialize with drinkers and smokers because of their fear that they might get influenced by them and end up acquiring these habits. Even in the workplace, the habit of drinking and smoking lowers an individual’s productivity and efficiency. This has a negative impact on the coworkers as the project suffers. As a result of this, the individual is likely to be terminated from the job. Even if this does not happen, keeping such an employee is risky for the employers. A drinker experiences sudden mood swings and aggression (Lindman and Lang, 1986, p. 671) and can frequently indulge into dysfunctional conflicts with coworkers, thus lower other employees’ productivity along with his/her own. It is in the best interest of the organizations to ban drinking and smoking at least in the workplace to avoid such incidents from happening. Critics and proponents of drinking and smoking emphasize upon the positive effects of drinking and smoking on an individual’s mood. They say that drinking is a potential way to enlighten the mood and smoking helps an individual release the stress. This gives the impression that it is right for the depressed and upset people to drink alcohol and smoke. Other arguments conventionally raised by the proponents of drinking and smoking include the economic benefits obtained by the countries that produce alcohol and cigarettes. There are several countries who have made the production and export of alcohol and cigarettes a means of making profit and strengthening the economy. One such country that has made a lot of money is Cuba, which produces and exports cigars across the world (U.S. International Trade Commission, 2001, p. 544). In addition to that proponents of drinking and smoking see it as a way of networking and building relationships. They say that drinkers and smokers are quite friendly people who like to share things with their friends and thus can make a lot of friends in a very short time. These and other arguments raised by the proponents of drinking and smoking are unrealistic and objectionable. First of all, drinking and smoking does not really relax an individual. The relaxing effect is generally temporal and is conditional and various factors like family history of alcoholism influence it (Sayette, 1999, p. 254). A vast majority of the drinkers do not really get relaxed. An individual might temporarily feel relaxed as he/she drinks or smokes, but the feeling often lasts as long as the drink or cigarette lasts. Not only is the cause of depression not solved, but also the individual ends up acquiring even more troubles of health and social interaction. For example, the individual’s tendency to become an addict is greatly increased as he/she tends to consume more and more of alcohol and cigarettes to be in the temporal phase of relaxation. This causes increase of the aforementioned health risks and social issues. Although countries like Cuba are making money by exporting cigars, it is unethical. This means that these countries are making money on the cost of people’s health and life. Drugs are really expensive as well as potentially dangerous for health and relations. Likewise, friends made through drinking and smoking are more of enemies than friends as they make an individual drink and smoke like them, thus exposing the individual to the same risks they themselves are exposed to. In addition to that friends made through drinking and smoking are not the ones who would help an individual in times of trouble. Therefore, it is not rational to consider them as friends. Concluding, drinking and smoking have many negative implications on the health and social status of an individual. Both drinking and smoking are causes of several kinds of diseases. Occasional drinking and smoking leads to drug addiction in the long run. If they are not controlled, they are easily accessible to the children, thus exposing the children to all kinds of risks. Drinking and smoking negatively impact an individual’s genes, which means that the effects can be transferred to the next generation. Drinking and smoking have a negative impact on an individual’s impression, which increases the individual’s tendency to be socially excluded. Arguments raised by the proponents of drinking and smoking are unrealistic and subject to heavy criticism. In light of the points discussed in this paper, it can be safely argued that both drinking and smoking should be controlled and banned by the government. References: Edenberg, H. J. (2007). The Genetics of Alcohol Metabolism. Alcohol Research and Health. 30(1): 5-13. English, P. B. and Eskenazi, B. (1992). Reinterpreting the Effects of Maternal Smoking on Infant Birthweight and Perinatal Mortality: A Multivariate Approach to Birthweight Standardization. International Journal of Epidemiology. 21(6): 1097-1105. Lindman, R. and Lang, A. R. (1986). Anticipated effects of alcohol consumption as a function of beverage type: A cross-cultural replication. International Journal of Psychology. 21: 671-678. Sayette, M. A. (1999). Does Drinking Reduce Stress? Alcohol Research and Health. 23(4): 250-255. U.S. International Trade Commission. (2001). The Economic Impact of U.S. Sanctions with Respect to Cuba, Inv. 332-413. USA: Diane Publishing. Yin, S. J., and Agarwal, D.P. (2001). Functional polymorphism of alcohol and alde­hyde dehydrogenases: Alcohol metabolism, alcoholism, and alcohol-induced organ damage. In: Agarwal, D. P., and Seitz, H. K., (eds.) Alcohol in Health and Disease. New York, NY: Marcel Dekker, 2001. pp. 1–26. Read More