Why It Is Important to Criminalize Possession of Cigarettes - Research Paper Example

CIGARETTES Millions of Americans smoke cigarettes. But cigarettes are poisonous. We outlaw many other forms of poison such as illegal drugs. It would make sense therefore to criminalize possession of cigarettes. The question we need to ask ourselves is why has this not been done yet. Why have we not taken the necessary steps to protect our children from this horrible scourge that is sweeping our country. We need to outlaw cigarettes and we need to do it now. Tobacco has been around for a long time. It has been popular for centuries. But in the 20th century, smoking took off. Cigarettes were mass produced and advertisements were set up in every city. Cigarettes became incredibly popular. For much of this time, and certainly in the late 20th century, cigarette companies became aware that their product was extremely dangerous and was causing cancer. They hid these facts from everyone. At the same time, independent medical practitioners were saying the same thing based on experience with their patients. It did not take a rocket scientist to realize that people could die from smoke inhalation. And yet the cigarette companies kept selling their products and deceiving the public. Cigarettes should have been banned then and there. Politicians should have stepped up to the plate for the Average Joe who w was suffering from cancer. Unfortunately nothing happened. It is quite sad to see that the government has taken very little interest in an issue that has such a strong and clear ethical dimension. We elect our leader to stand up for what we believe is right. However, the American government was more interested in throwing people in prison for smoking marijuana than they were for arresting cigarettes executives who had perpetrated a massive, deadly fraud on the American people. This was truly shameful. But it is not too late to change things. Cigarettes should be banned. They are a severe poison and they should not be permitted to be sold in the marketplace. No government should permit companies to poison its people; even less so should companies be allowed to lie to both citizens and the government. Unfortunately, the facts on this matter speak for themselves. Even the scientists hired by these companies indicate that they have lied to the public and to the government about what is really in their product. As one recent news report put it: cigarette scientists had been altering their findings to hide the toxicity of their product: They also found, after obtaining evidence that additives increased toxicity, that tobacco scientists adjusted the protocol for presenting their results in a way that obscured these increases. "We discovered these post-hoc changes in analytical protocols after the industry scientists found that the additives increased cigarette toxicity by increasing the number of fine particles in the cigarette smoke that cause heart and other diseases," said senior author Stanton A. Glantz (Science Daily). How any educated person could work for a cigarette company is beyond me. But I guess Hitler had many willing executioners among the ordinary German people. People are capable of anything. The idea that trained scientists and possibly doctors (who took a Hippocratic Oath) deliberately have misled regulators and the American people is truly atrocious. The only word to describe this kind of behaviour is a conspiracy. There are criminal sanctions available for such action and the full weight of the law must be brought to bear on these individuals. Lying and deception about the dangers of cigarettes is just one of several negative things about tobacco companies. It is important, however, to focus on the physical effects of tobacco. Second hand smoke poisons our children. Just breathing in the smoke of someone sitting next to you can injure your health. You yourself can hate cigarettes and be perfectly healthy but someone near to you can make you unhealthy. However, the worst part is that cigarettes target our mothers. Fathers smoke and mothers and children breathe it in. And because women are more susceptible to the harm cause by tobacco, they suffer the most. Cigarettes are killing America’s mothers. A recent report indicated how much more vulnerable women are to cigarette smoke then men. The fascinating findings were as follows: The authors’ meta-analysis included around 4 million individuals and 67000 coronary heart disease events from 86 studies. They found that in 75 cohorts (total 2·4 million participants) that adjusted for cardiovascular risk factors other than coronary heart disease, the pooled adjusted female-to-male relative risk ratio (RRR) of smoking compared with not smoking for coronary heart disease was 1·25 (ie, 25% higher for women). (Huston) Again this is part of the double standard that pervades American life. If men suffered as much as women, this would not even be an issue, but because it affects women more, it seems to be off the public radar. This is unacceptable in today’s day and age. We need to treat all of our citizens equally and ensure that we look after the health of everyone. That is why we need to ban cigarettes and we need to do it now, before one more woman dies. Sadly, the United States does not treat this issue with much seriousness. Many countries are more enlightened that the United States when it comes to smoking. In many countries of the Commonwealth, for example, cigarette packages feature gruesome photos of rotting mouths and soiled lungs. This is an effort to convince young people and others that cigarettes pose a grave danger to their health. It was found to be much more effective to put these kinds of photos on the packages of cigarettes rather than just a written warning. The images shock and catch people by surprise; in contrast, their eyes can just pass easily over the written warnings that typically accompany such packages. Some countries have suggested the whole package should be entirely covered up. Philip Morris is of course fighting back. They believe they have the right to continue to hide the severe health effects their product has on the human body. Australia’s efforts to cover up packages has been met with fierce opposition. For example, the plan to do as follows: The Australian government has drawn up some of the world's strictest restrictions for cigarette packaging. From January 2012 it plans to stop manufacturers showing logos, branding, colours and promotional text on tobacco packaging. Cigarette packets will be a drab, olive-green colour that research has shown is unattractive to smokers. The box will also show graphic images depicting the health consequences of smoking on the front and back. (Rushe). This is a strange debate. What is the point of covering up the product so entirely? Why not ban it? The governments of the world appear to be trying to squeeze cigarettes out of existence step by step. This is an expensive way of doing things, when an outright ban would accomplish the same thing. This stage by stage process sounds good on paper as may minimize protests from industry, but think of all the people who are dying in the interim. For every decade that governments dither over whether to cover up a pack of cigarettes or put on a gruesome image, more people are dying of cancer and more teenagers are starting to become addicted nicotine. We need to take more drastic action to fix this very serious problem while we still can. Fortunately, there are some examples to follow. Some fearless countries have taken important steps in the war on tobacco. Some countries have even gone so far as to completely ban smoking all together, as was recently done in Bhutan, a small kingdom in central Asia that is considered to be one of the happiest places on Earth. A recent report put it this way: Bhutan's parliament, which passed the smoking ban, anticipated complaints. It added a few sizable loopholes. Foreigners can still smoke and import tobacco (but if caught selling it to Bhutanese they will be charged with smuggling). Bhutanese are, technically, allowed to smoke in their homes and can even import small quantities of tobacco for "personal use," though they'll pay as much as 200 percent in customs duties and sales taxes for the pleasure. (Wiener) The United States can learn from Bhutan’s example. We know so much more about science today than we did only a few years ago. We are learning more and more about the human body every day. The truth is that we need to put all this excellent knowledge to use. If we know that cigarettes cause cancer and that second hand smoke can kill us, why do we permit companies to make millions manufacturing these products and selling them to kids. It makes no sense. In particular, when you consider that so much drugs which do harm to people are illegal, and the harm principle prevails, why should cigarettes which arguably kill more people than any other drug, be exempt from these laws. The idea tends to boggle the mind. We need to shape up or ship out. We need to speak to our legislators and our community leaders and convince them to lead the charge against Big Tobacco and the trail of misery that it has left behind it over the decades. We need to take action and we need to take action now. Before it is too late we must ban tobacco. Work Cited Huston, Larry. “Danger Of Cigarettes Greater In Women Than Men.” Forbes. Aug. 11, 2008. Web. http://www.forbes.com/sites/larryhusten/2011/08/11/danger-of-cigarettes-greater-in-women-than-in-men/ Register, Kathleen M. "Cigarette Butts as Litter—Toxic as Well as Ugly", Longwood University. Underwater Naturalist, Volume 25, Number 2, August 2000. Print Rushe, Dominic. "Philip Morris to sue if Australia puts all cigarettes in plain green wrappers". The Guardian (London). June 6, 2011. Web. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jun/27/philip-morris-australia-cigarettes-packaging Staff. “Tobacco Company Misrepresented Danger from Cigarettes, Study Suggests.” Science Daily. Web. Jan 6. 2012. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120106164921.htm Wiener, Eric. “The First Nonsmoking Nation.” Slate. Jan. 20, 2005. Web. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/how_they_do_it/2005/01/the_first_nonsmoking_nation.html Read More