Promoting of Cigarette Smoking - Essay Example

Three approaches can be utilized to help explain the severity of the sociological aspects of smoking cigarettes. This theory analysis acts at the micro-sociological level. It aims to identify small scale (interpersonal) patterns of social interaction. Usually people use symbols to create social life to make sense and attach meanings to what they do. Interaction is usually analyzed at a face-to-face communication. [4] Considering the smoking problem, it can be said that analyzing the individual aspect of smokers is the best possible starting point.

"Cigarettes have been socially engineered to become potent symbols" [5]. Children start smoking early in their teen lives to be perceived as 'cool'. A smoker is considered to be a part of the 'gang'. This may not necessarily be a true perception. Smoking is usually considered a characteristic attached to a 'bad guy'. Formal business like meetings strongly discourages smoking. Public places and business areas in many countries are banned smoking areas. People usually like to keep their proximity with a person smelling of nicotine breath and bellowing hazardous smoke [3].

Smoking doesn't always start at an early age. . Falling into this trap leads a person into cigarette addiction which is an extremely hard habit to break [3].This symbolic interaction theory tells us about the problems people face in the company of smokers like peer pressure. It also tells us how smokers feel as sometimes they are not accepted in the society.Functional AnalysisA functional analysis focuses more on the large scale macro-sociological patterns of the society as a whole. It helps identify the relationships among the parts of a society and analyzes the functional and dysfunctional impacts on the society.

[4]Generally smoking is considered a 'social evil' where people who smoke are separated from the people who smoke. This segmentation has a variety of effects on the society, major being the society's fragmentation. Smokers contribute negatively to the society as they are one of the factors that lead to a society's non-cohesiveness. It creates two segments of the society; smoking and non-smoking. The smoking segment appreciates the smokers and even lauds them. This part of the society opts for public smoking and businesses owned by this part of the society have lax rules of smoking, while the non-smoking strata are strongly against smoking in public areas.

Even though smoking has segmented the society, chugging in nicotine is considered a health hazard by all. Cancer, breathing problems along with other diseases are recognized as smoking related issues [3]. For this reason, the society as a whole functions to resolve the looming health problems related to active and passive smoking. Awareness programs, health warnings on cigarette packs and anti-smoking laws and creating smoking free zones are some of the procedures societies in the world