speech on why smoking should be banned

Persuasive Essay Guide

Persuasive Essay About Smoking

Persuasive Essay About Smoking - Making a Powerful Argument with Examples

What You Need To Know About Persuasive Essay

A persuasive essay is a type of writing that aims to convince its readers to take a certain stance or action. It often uses logical arguments and evidence to back up its argument in order to persuade readers.

It also utilizes rhetorical techniques such as ethos, pathos, and logos to make the argument more convincing. In other words, persuasive essays use facts and evidence as well as emotion to make their points.

A persuasive essay about smoking would use these techniques to convince its readers about any point about smoking. Check out an example below:

Simple persuasive essay about smoking

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Persuasive Essay Examples About Smoking

Smoking is one of the leading causes of preventable death in the world. It leads to adverse health effects, including lung cancer, heart disease, and damage to the respiratory tract. However, the number of people who smoke cigarettes has been on the rise globally.

A lot has been written on topics related to the effects of smoking. Reading essays about it can help you get an idea of what makes a good persuasive essay.

Here are some sample persuasive essays about smoking that you can use as inspiration for your own writing:

Persuasive speech on smoking outline

Persuasive essay about smoking should be banned

Persuasive essay about smoking pdf

Persuasive essay about smoking cannot relieve stress

Persuasive essay about smoking in public places

Speech about smoking is dangerous

Persuasive Essay About Smoking Introduction

Persuasive Essay About Stop Smoking

Short Persuasive Essay About Smoking

Stop Smoking Persuasive Speech

Check out some more persuasive essay examples on various other topics.

Argumentative Essay About Smoking Examples

An argumentative essay is a type of essay that uses facts and logical arguments to back up a point. It is similar to a persuasive essay but differs in that it utilizes more evidence than emotion.

If you’re looking to write an argumentative essay about smoking, here are some examples to get you started on the arguments of why you should not smoke.

Argumentative essay about smoking pdf

Argumentative essay about smoking in public places

Argumentative essay about smoking introduction

Check out the video below to find useful arguments against smoking:

Tips for Writing a Persuasive Essay About Smoking

You have read some examples of persuasive and argumentative essays about smoking. Now here are some tips that will help you craft a powerful essay on this topic.

Choose a Specific Angle

Select a particular perspective on the issue that you can use to form your argument. When talking about smoking, you can focus on any aspect such as the health risks, economic costs, or environmental impact.

Think about how you want to approach the topic. For instance, you could write about why smoking should be banned.

Check out the list of persuasive essay topics to help you while you are thinking of an angle to choose!

Research the Facts

Before writing your essay, make sure to research the facts about smoking. This will give you reliable information to use in your arguments and evidence for why people should avoid smoking.

You can find and use credible data and information from reputable sources such as government websites, health organizations, and scientific studies.

For instance, you should gather facts about health issues and negative effects of tobacco if arguing against smoking. Moreover, you should use and cite sources carefully.

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Make an Outline

The next step is to create an outline for your essay. This will help you organize your thoughts and make sure that all the points in your essay flow together logically.

Your outline should include the introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. This will help ensure that your essay has a clear structure and argument.

Use Persuasive Language

When writing your essay, make sure to use persuasive language such as “it is necessary” or “people must be aware”. This will help you convey your message more effectively and emphasize the importance of your point.

Also, don’t forget to use rhetorical devices such as ethos, pathos, and logos to make your arguments more convincing. That is, you should incorporate emotion, personal experience, and logic into your arguments.

Introduce Opposing Arguments

Another important tip when writing a persuasive essay on smoking is to introduce opposing arguments. It will show that you are aware of the counterarguments and can provide evidence to refute them. This will help you strengthen your argument.

By doing this, your essay will come off as more balanced and objective, making it more convincing.

Finish Strong

Finally, make sure to finish your essay with a powerful conclusion. This will help you leave a lasting impression on your readers and reinforce the main points of your argument. You can end by summarizing the key points or giving some advice to the reader.

A powerful conclusion could either include food for thought or a call to action. So be sure to use persuasive language and make your conclusion strong.

To conclude,

By following these tips, you can write an effective and persuasive essay on smoking. Remember to research the facts, make an outline, and use persuasive language.

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Keep reading

Should Smoking Be Illegal?

Should smoking be banned? What are the pros and cons of banning cigarettes in public places? If you’re writing an argumentative essay or persuasive speech on why smoking should be banned, check out this sample.

Smoking Should Be Banned: Essay Introduction

Reasons why smoking should be banned, why smoking should not be banned: essay arguments, why smoking should be banned essay conclusion.

Smoking involves burning a substance to take in its smoke into the lungs. These substances are commonly tobacco or cannabis. Combustion releases the active substances in them, like nicotine, which are absorbed through the lungs.

A widespread technique through which this is done is via smoking manufactured cigarettes or hand-rolling the tobacco ready for smoking. Almost 1 billion people in the majority of all human societies practice smoking. Complications directly associated with smoking claim the lives of half of all the persons involved in smoking tobacco or marijuana for a long time.

Smoking is an addiction because tobacco contains nicotine, which is very addictive. The nicotine makes it difficult for a smoker to quit. Therefore, a person will become used to nicotine such that he/she has to smoke to feel normal. Consequently, I think smoking should be banned for some reason.

One reason why smoking should be banned is that it has got several health effects. It harms almost every organ of the body. Cigarette smoking causes 87% of lung cancer deaths and is also responsible for many other cancer and health problems. 

Apart from this, infant deaths that occur in pregnant women are attributed to smoking. Similarly, people who stay near smokers become secondary smokers, who may breathe in the smoke and get the same health problems as smokers. Although not widely smoked, cannabis also has health problems, and withdrawal symptoms include depression, insomnia, frustration, anger, anxiety, concentration difficulties, and restlessness.

Besides causing emphysema, smoking also affects the digestive organs and the blood circulatory systems, especially heart arteries. Women have a higher risk of heart attack than men, exacerbating with time as one smokes. Smoking also affects the mouth, whereby the teeth become discolored, the lips blacken and always stay dry, and the breath smells bad.

Cigarette and tobacco products are costly. People who smoke are therefore forced to spend their money on these products, which badly wastes the income they would have otherwise spent on other things. Therefore, I think that smoking should be forbidden to reduce the costs of treating diseases related to smoking and the number of deaths caused by smoking-related illnesses.

However, tobacco and cigarette manufacturing nations would lose a lot if smoking was to be banned. I, therefore, think that it should not be banned. Some nations largely depend on exporting cigarettes and tobacco products to get revenue.

This revenue typically boosts the economy of such nations. If smoking were banned, they would incur significant losses since tobacco companies are multi-billion organizations. Apart from these, millions of people will be jobless due to the ban.

The process by which tobacco and cigarette products reach consumers is very complex, and it involves a chain process with several people involved in it. Banning smoking, therefore, means these people will lose their jobs, which most may depend on for their livelihoods.

In conclusion, the ban on smoking is a tough step to be undertaken, especially when the number of worldwide users is billions. Although it burdens nations enormously in treating smoking-related diseases, it may take a long time before a ban can work. Attempts by some nations to do this have often been met with failures.

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Persuasive Speech Example

Having a persuasive speech example to study can help you to create your presentation more easily. Although the persuasive speech below has plenty of facts, it's really an exercise in using vocal variety, gestures and exaggeration to sell the point of view that smoking should be banned in all public places.

Read through it and see if you can apply some of the techniques used in this speech to your own presentation.

Sample Title: Say "No" to Secondhand Smoke

Beginning of persuasive speech example.

I stumbled out of the building, coughing and wheezing, smoke filling my eyes and lungs. I tugged frantically at my tie to loosen my collar, my head pounding as I ran out the door.

...fresh….air….gotta….have….fresh…..air…

Was it a fire?

Terrorist attack?

No, I was simply eating my dinner when a gentleman at the table next to us decided to light up a cigarette. The smoke went right into my face and lungs. All of a sudden I couldn't breathe, my chest hurt and I panicked.

Ladies and gentlemen, by the end of this year more people will die from second hand smoke related deaths than the average crowd at a Major League Baseball game. Secondhand, or passive smoke, is an insidious killer that is harming adults, and more critically, children around the country every day.

My goal in speaking to you today is to enlist your support in a federal ban of all smoking from all public places without hesitation.

But isn't this America? Shouldn't I have the right to smoke? If I want to pollute my lungs and ruin my health, why should that be any concern of yours?

The facts are that secondhand smoke is responsible for many of the same diseases as if the sufferers had smoked the cigarettes themselves. These diseases include cardiovascular diseases, lung cancer, and respiratory diseases.

For example, the International Agency on Research on Cancer found that “involuntary smoking is carcinogenic to humans." Various studies in the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom point to a significant increase in risk of lung cancer among those exposed to passive smoke.

The California Environmental Protection Agency found that passive smoking increases the risk of breast cancer in young women by 70%. In a separate paper, the US Surgeon General found that there was evidence that suggested that there was a causal relationship between smoking and breast cancer.

Secondhand smoke is even associated with the loss of hearing in non-smoking adults.

What? What did you say?

Studies have shown that both active and passive cigarette smoking increases the risk of their atherosclerosis. Also, exposure to secondhand smoke increases the risk of cognitive impairment and dementia in adults 50 and over.

And our children?

Putting children at risk is unforgivable at best and probably criminal. In a 2006 report, the US Surgeon General found that the evidence is sufficient to infer a relationship between secondhand smoke and sudden infant death syndrome.

And - horrifyingly - the risk of developing brain tumors is higher among children exposed to passive smoking, even if the mother does not smoke.

The California Environmental Protection Agency found that the risk of childhood cancer (and adult lung cancer) increases after childhood exposure to passive smoking.

Sadly I could go on, and on, and on. And on!

Secondhand smoke in the home is one problem. But to go to a public restaurant, or concert, or any event and to experience secondhand smoke is impacting the health of our population and increasing healthcare costs. Without doubt, it should be banned by federal mandate in the next session.

While you have the option of whether to smoke or not, I DON'T have the option of not breathing.

Nor do our children.

End of Persuasive Speech Example

Were you persuaded? In this persuasive speech example you get some facts and statistics which are usually found in informative speeches . However, when delivered in a slightly exaggerated way with hand gestures, these statistics can be incredibly persuasive.

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Home — Essay Samples — Nursing & Health — Smoking — Should Smoking Be Made Illegal: Argumentative

Should Smoking Be Made Illegal: Argumentative

Categories: Smoking Smoking Ban Tobacco

About this sample

Words: 674 |

Updated: 8 December, 2023

Words: 674 | Page: 1 | 4 min read

Works Cited

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2021). Health Effects of Cigarette Smoking. https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/health_effects/effects_cig_smoking/index.htm
Chatterjee, K., & Chatterjee, K. (2014). Secondhand Smoke: Are We Protecting Our Children? Lung India, 31(4), 369–377.
Foulds, J., Ramstrom, L., Burke, M., & Fagerström, K. (2003). Effect of Smokeless Tobacco (Snus) on Smoking and Public Health in Sweden. Tobacco Control, 12(4), 349–359.
Hatsukami, D. K., & Stead, L. F. (2020). Tobacco Use: Prevention, Cessation, and Control. Oxford University Press.
Hu, T.-W., Lee, A. H.-Y., Mao, Z., & Ong, M. (2016). China at the Crossroads: The Economics of Tobacco and Health. World Scientific Publishing.
National Cancer Institute. (2020). Harms of Cigarette Smoking and Health Benefits of Quitting. https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/tobacco/cessation-fact-sheet
Peto, R., Lopez, A. D., Boreham, J., Thun, M., & Heath, C. Jr. (2016). Mortality from Smoking in Developed Countries 1950-2010: Indirect Estimates from National Vital Statistics. Oxford University Press.
Schick, S., & Glantz, S. (2005). Philip Morris Toxicological Experiments with Fresh Sidestream Smoke: More Toxic than Mainstream Smoke. Tobacco Control, 14(6), 396–404.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2014). The Health Consequences of Smoking—50 Years of Progress: A Report of the Surgeon General. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health.
World Health Organization. (2019). WHO Global Report on Trends in Prevalence of Tobacco Smoking 2000-2025, Second Edition. World Health Organization.

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The pros and cons of a total smoking ban

Plans to phase out the sale of tobacco completely have won cross-party support

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Pro: saving lives

Con: black markets, pro: avoiding poverty, con: risk to civil liberties, pro: environmental protection, con: losing tax revenue.

Rishi Sunak's plans to phase out the sale of cigarettes appears to have gained cross-party backing, making a total smoking ban in the UK a real possibility.

The prime minister used his Conservative Party conference speech to announce plans to raise the age at which people can buy tobacco in England year by year until it applies to the whole population. This would mean a 14-year-old today will never legally be able to buy a cigarette, putting England on a par with the likes of New Zealand, which introduced a similar law last year, in having "some of the strictest smoking laws in the world", Sky News reported.

While an outright ban – even one introduced over several decades – may prove controversial, its chances of coming into law have received a boost after it won support from Labour, as well as Welsh and Scottish governments, where laws on smoking are devolved.

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"Political instincts on this issue are coalescing around a similar position," said BBC political editor Chris Mason, meaning the plan could be both "profound and long-lasting".

Almost six million people in England smoke, and tobacco remains the single biggest cause of preventable illness and death. Tobacco smoke can cause cancer, stroke and heart disease, with smoking-related illnesses costing the NHS £17 billion a year, according to campaign group Action on Smoking and Health (ASH).

An independent government-commissioned review , which last year recommended proposals similar to those announced by Sunak, argued that tackling tobacco use and supporting smokers to quit would help prevent 15 types of cancer – including lung cancer, throat cancer and acute myeloid leukaemia. Recent data showed that one in four deaths from all cancers were estimated to be from smoking.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4 's "Today" programme, the prime minister said his proposals represented the "biggest public health intervention in a generation", a claim backed up by England's chief medical officer, Sir Chris Whitty, who stressed how beneficial the health improvements would be.

Simon Clark, of smokers' lobby group Forest, told the BBC that "creeping prohibition won't stop young adults smoking" but it will "simply drive the sale of tobacco underground and consumers will buy cigarettes on the black market where no-one pays tax and products are completely unregulated".

The illicit trade in tobacco products "poses major health, economic and security concerns around the world", according to the World Health Organization , which estimates 1 in every 10 cigarettes and tobacco products consumed globally is illicit.

Writing for The Conversation , Dr Brendan Gogarty, of the University of Tasmania, argued that "laws that rely on prohibition to reduce the prevalence and harm from drugs generally fail to achieve their aims".

Smoking causes a disproportionate burden on the most disadvantaged families and communities, last year's independent review found. The average smoker in the North East of England spends over 10% of their income on tobacco, compared to just over 6% in the South East.

This mirrors research from 2015 conducted by University of Nottingham, which found parents who smoke were "plunging nearly half a million children into poverty", The Independent reported.

As smokers quit, said Sudyumna Dahal for The Conversation , household budgets "become easier, facilitating what a study in the British Medical Journal describes as an income transfer from male smokers to females and other family members".

Therefore, argue anti-smoking campaigners, banning smoking would bring greater benefits to the less well-off.

Smokers and the groups who advocate on their behalf argue that their habit is a civil right, even if it kills the smoker. In a report published in 2019, the smokers’ group Forest argued that "smokers are the canaries for civil liberties".

It added that the call for a ban "directly violates the harm principle that assumes a person has autonomy over their own life and body as long as they do not hurt other people".

As The Spectator editor Fraser Nelson pointed out on Twitter , plans to phase out the sale of cigarettes could lead to the absurd situation where pensioners will have to produce ID to prove which side of the ever-moving line of legality they are on.

"I'd love to live in a smoke-free world," wrote Rachael Bletchly in the Daily Mirror . "I wish people would stop wrecking their health with cigarettes. But I don't think it's the job of politicians to police other grown-ups' filthy habits. And I fear that Rishi Sunak's new smoking ban is just well-meaning, populist puff."

Cigarette smoking has several negative environmental impacts and banning smoking would bring these to an end. Smokers release pollution into the atmosphere, cigarette butts litter the environment, and the toxic chemicals in the residues cause soil and water pollution.

Tobacco is commonly planted in rainforest areas and has contributed to major deforestation, said Conserve Energy Future .

A 2013 report in the journal Tobacco Control found that cigarette manufacturing “consumes scarce resources in growing, curing, rolling, flavouring, packaging, transport, advertising and legal defence” and “also causes harms from massive pesticide use”.

Taxation on smoking raises more than £8.8 billion per year for the Treasury, noted Politics.co.uk . The TaxPayers’ Alliance rejected the argument that smokers also cost the taxman more due to their health burden, arguing that smokers who suffer major health problems are more likely to die prematurely, reducing expenditure on state pensions and other age-related benefits.

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14 Central Pros and Cons of Smoking Bans

Smoking ban policies are implemented in some American states and cities but the contentions on whether they are necessary and relevant are still heard from supporters and critics. Restrictions on cigarette smoking can be traced back as early the 16th century and up to now, this issue remains to be controversial.

Smoking ban is a policy that prohibits smoking in public places like restaurants, workplaces, parks, malls, government offices and schools, among others. There are policies implemented statewide and there are some that only restrict smoking in public places but not in enclosed areas.

To get an idea on how people are taking smoking bans, here are some of the views expressed by proponents and opponents.

List of Pros of Smoking Bans

1. They reduce the risk of second-hand smoke. Advocates for smoking bans claim that passing a law to prohibit smoking in public places can lessen the possibility of second-hand smoke being inhaled by non-smokers. Second-hand smoke, according to experts, can lead to increased risk to emphysema, cardiovascular disorders and respiratory problems. By restricting the places where smoking is allowed, this can be prevented.

2. They lessen air pollution. Supporters also say that states and cities which have non-smoking policies and prohibited smoking in restaurants and public indoor spaces have better indoor air quality as opposed to cities which still allow smoking public.

3. They improve work productivity. Proponents point out that not all people smoke at the office. If smoking is allowed, non-smokers can still inhale the smoke and it can be bothersome for them to smell the smoke. On the other hand, if it is prohibited, employees can be more productive. They also added that smoking can cause respiratory infections and smokers are prone to these. If employees smoke less, chances are, the risk of getting sick is minimized.

4. They reduce healthcare costs. Advocates maintain their position about the benefits of smoking bans by saying that reports indicate reduced health costs in cities were smoking are restricted. And since health care costs take around 9.3% of the country’s GDP, reducing it can affect the economy in a positive way.

5. They decrease the possibility of fires. Smoking can increase the risks of fire in places with highly flammable materials. There have been instances of fires which started from lit cigarettes. Moreover, accidents related to explosions at work sites can also happen if smoking will not be prohibited.

6. They reduce wastes. Cigarette butts are non-biodegradable and can clog water systems if thrown recklessly. With banning smoking in public places, there will be lesser cigarette butts and lesser toxic garbage that can be stuck in water systems.

7. They contribute to lower energy consumption and personal expenses. If smoking is banned in public places such as malls and restaurants, there will be lesser need to use ventilation and this can result to lesser energy consumption and in effect, lesser expense. As for smokers, advocates say that an individual who smokes a pack a day spends less than $20 each day and around $720 a year. With smoking bans, it can reduce the expense for cigarette purchase of a smoker in half.

8. They result to cleaner areas where food is prepared and manufactured. With restricting smoking, supporters posit that this can ensure cleanliness is observed in food preparation in restaurants and in the streets. Moreover, smoking bans in workplaces and pharmaceuticals also contribute to cleaner indoor quality as well as maintaining cleanliness.

9. They lessen the chance of influencing others to take on the habit. Supporters for smoking bans claim that cigarette smoking is also considered a status symbol and some teenagers can be influenced to smoke just to fit it. If these young people will be exposed to smoking less, they will not be easily tempted to try.

List of Cons of Smoking Bans

1. They take away freedom from people. Some critics see smoking bans as a violation on one’s personal liberty. They argue that people should have the autonomy to decide on what kind of lifestyle they will have. Although they are not totally against banning smoking, they say that it should be a personal choice.

2. They can affect businesses. Business owners who are not in favor of smoking bans as well as smokers who are used to smoking in public places such as restaurants and coffee shops argue that restricting smoking in these places can drive customers away and this can be harmful to businesses. And as for establishments which are already smoke-free, competition will be higher. It will also be harder for them to leverage since there will be more businesses that are smoke-free.

3. They are not effective. Groups not really in favor of smoking bans say that they are not effective since smokers will just be usually told to leave and that penalties are not stiff. Smoking ban policies do not have enough teeth since repercussions are not harsh enough.

4. They drive people to smokers to smoke somewhere else. Some critics contend that banning smoking in some places just leaves smokers no choice but to do it somewhere else. They mentioned that this can even lead to increase cases of DUI fatalities since smokers might drive to other places just so they can smoke.

5. They result to lesser tax revenues for the government. People against smoking bans are concerned on the effect on government revenues if the push for smoke-free states will be implemented. They say that the government earns from high taxes paid by tobacco manufacturers and smokers. If cigarettes will be reduced, this would mean lesser taxes and lesser revenue for the government.

The controversy on smoking bans is not to leave the debate arena soon. There will always be people who will advocate for banning smoking in public places for concerns on health issues and fire hazards. However, there are also those who are firm in opposing it. And although there is a higher percentage of people who are behind smoking bans, imposing these policies nationwide is not going to happen in the near future because the views of people will always be divided.

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Kalle Grill 1 ,
Kristin Voigt 2 , 3
1 Department of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies , University of Umeå , Umea , Sweden
2 Ethox Centre, Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, UK
3 Institute for Health and Social Policy & Department of Philosophy, McGill University, Canada
Correspondence to Dr Kristin Voigt, Ethox Centre, Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford, Old Road Campus, Oxford OX3 7LF; kristin.voigt{at}ethox.ox.ac.uk

Lifelong smokers lose on average a decade of life vis-à-vis non-smokers. Globally, tobacco causes about 5–6 million deaths annually. One billion tobacco-related deaths are predicted for the 21st century, with about half occurring before the age of 70. In this paper, we consider a complete ban on the sale of cigarettes and find that such a ban, if effective, would be justified. As with many policy decisions, the argument for such a ban requires a weighing of the pros and cons and how they impact on different individuals, both current and future. The weightiest factor supporting a ban, we argue, is the often substantial well-being losses many individuals suffer because of smoking. These harms, moreover, disproportionally affect the disadvantaged. The potential gains in well-being and equality, we argue, outweigh the limits a ban places on individuals’ freedom, its failure to respect some individuals’ autonomous choice and the likelihood that it may, in individual cases, reduce well-being.

Population Policy
Public Health Ethics
Public Policy

https://doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2015-102682

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Introduction

Lifelong smokers lose on average a decade of life vis-à-vis non-smokers. Globally, tobacco causes about 5–6 million deaths annually. 1 This number is expected to grow: a total of one billion deaths are predicted during the 21st century, with about half occurring before the age of 70. 1 , 2 It is against this background that we will argue for a complete ban on the sale of cigarettes. While our argument focuses on tobacco cigarettes, which in many countries are by far the most popular tobacco product and in the aggregate the most harmful, we think it could be extended to include other forms of combustible tobacco as well.

As with many policy decisions, the argument for a ban requires a weighing of its pros and cons, including its impact on different individuals, both current and future. The weightiest factor supporting a ban, we argue, is the often substantial well-being losses many individuals suffer as a result of smoking. These harms, moreover, disproportionately affect the disadvantaged. The potential gains in well-being and equality, we argue, outweigh the limits a ban places on individuals’ freedom, its failure to respect some individuals’ autonomous choice and the likelihood that it may, in individual cases, reduce well-being.

The idea of a complete ban on the sale of cigarettes is not new. Bans were in place in 15 US states from 1890 to 1927, and Bhutan has had a ban since 2004. 3 Bans on the sale of (at least some) tobacco products have also been endorsed by members of the international tobacco control community. 3–6

In order to bring into focus the fundamental normative issues surrounding a ban on sales, we will simplify our discussion in two ways. First, we assume that a ban would be effective. In the real world, of course, any all-things-considered judgement must be informed by an assessment of a ban's likely effectiveness in different contexts, with due consideration of problems such as smuggled cigarettes and black markets. Second, we focus on a complete ban on sales, comparing this only to the status quo and not to the full range of policy alternatives. i We believe that the necessary debate about different policy instruments in various contexts will be greatly facilitated by consideration of the principled argument for a perfectly effective ban, which is what our paper seeks to provide.

We discuss smoking as a global problem, although most real bans would likely be implemented domestically and our argument might have to be adapted to reflect the situation of individual countries or regions. In rich countries, factors such as the greater availability of cessation resources and information about the risks of smoking make a ban less warranted than in countries where much of the population may be unaware of the risks associated with smoking. We therefore focus our discussion on rich countries in order to tackle the most challenging case for our position. This should not detract from the fact that the majority of death and disease a global ban would prevent will occur in low-income and middle-income countries.

We begin by considering the impact of smoking on health and well-being (section ‘Health and well-being’) and the egalitarian effects of a ban (section ‘Equality’), both of which will be central to our argument. We then discuss how individual freedom and autonomy are affected by a ban in the section ‘Freedom and autonomy’. The sections ‘Voluntariness’, ‘Irrationality’ and ‘Preferences and endorsement’ consider three putative aspects of smoking choices that have been emphasised in the literature: non-voluntariness, irrationality and inconsistency with smokers’ endorsed preferences. These aspects do strengthen the argument for a ban, but their role is different from what is often proposed. In ‘Banning cigarettes: pros and cons’, we bring together these various considerations and explain why overall they speak in favour of a ban. The final section concludes by briefly commenting on how e-cigarettes could help address some of the problems and opposition facing a ban on conventional cigarettes.

Health and well-being

The health risk of smoking naturally varies with the extent of tobacco use. Long-time smokers face significantly increased health risks, including higher risks of lung and other cancers, cardiovascular disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Significant differences in mortality rates between smokers and never-smokers become apparent from middle age onwards. 8 Studies suggest a 10-year to 11-year difference between the lifespans of long-term and never-smokers. 8 , 9 In addition, smoking is implicated in causing many non-fatal conditions that can substantially lower individuals’ quality of life, ranging from asthma, tuberculosis, digestive problems and gum disease to vision problems, reduced fertility as well as impotence. 10

While heavy tobacco use is of course more harmful than light use, even light use, when long term, yields substantial health risks, in some respects approximating those of long-term heavy use. For example, ischaemic heart disease risk is similar in light, intermittent and heavy smokers. 11 With respect to lung cancer, for men smoking 1–4 cigarettes per day, the risk is three times that of never-smokers; for women, it is five times as high. 12

Conversely, cessation—which an effective ban would ensure—is associated with substantial health benefits. While for those who quit before their 30s excess mortality is reduced almost to the level of never-smokers, even those who quit at the ages of 40, 50 and 60 gain about 9, 6 and 3 years of life expectancy, respectively. 8 , 9

We believe that a comprehensive argument for a ban should look beyond health to overall well-being: improving health outcomes would not be worthwhile if this left people worse off overall. Many health risks are quite reasonably considered worth taking by the individuals concerned because of the benefits they bring in other, non-health areas of their lives.

While there may be disagreement in specific instances, on most accounts of well-being both the premature mortality and various diseases associated with smoking will reduce lifetime well-being. On hedonist views, the pain and frustration associated with non-fatal diseases typically decrease well-being with no countervailing benefit. Regarding mortality, life is, with some tragic exceptions, on balance a positive experience, and so more life is better. On preferentist or desire-based views, more of a person's most important preferences will typically be satisfied, and fewer frustrated, if she lives longer and has better health. A longer and healthier life also advances typical objective list entries such as developing and sustaining human relationships, and various moral and rational pursuits. Even if one refrains from specifying the nature of well-being, in line with liberal neutrality, long life and good health are all-purpose means that contribute to the pursuit of almost any life plan.

Importantly, we do not deny that smoking can also promote well-being in certain respects; in fact, we will emphasise below that it can do so and consider the possibility that there may be individuals for whom smoking leads to an overall gain in well-being. However, in the aggregate, the negative well-being effects of smoking are likely much larger than its positive effects.

Smoking also contributes to inequality. Most obviously, smokers are, to varying degrees, worse off than non-smokers because of the health risks and the monetary costs associated with smoking. Less obviously, because of the denormalisation of smoking, smokers are increasingly stigmatised and discriminated against. 13 , 14

What makes smoking particularly problematic from the point of view of equality is that it disproportionately harms people who are disadvantaged in other regards. In many rich countries, smoking rates are significantly higher among low-income groups. In the UK, for example, smoking prevalence in routine or manual occupations is 30% while in managerial and professional occupations it is 16%. 15 Among the most deprived groups, smoking rates reach >70%; among homeless people sleeping rough, 90% are smokers. 16

Of course, not all disadvantaged people smoke, and not all smokers are disadvantaged, socio-economically or otherwise. In the aggregate, however, a ban could help reduce inequalities in health outcomes. Studies suggest that, in Europe, smoking could be the largest single contributor to socio-economic inequalities in health, particularly among men. 17 In the UK, tobacco is considered the cause of about half of the socioeconomic status difference in death rates. 18

Many factors may contribute to unequal smoking rates. Smoking norms vary substantially across different groups. 19 In deprived communities, smoking often plays an important social role. 20 Support with cessation, including nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), counselling and medical advice, may also be more accessible for those from better-off groups. Further, the tobacco industry has specifically targeted disadvantaged populations, for example by placing its advertising disproportionately in low-income and ethnic minority neighbourhoods 21 , 22 and devising marketing strategies with particular appeal to the homeless and those with mental health problems. 23 These factors may help explain differences in cessation rates: studies suggest that across social groups smokers make similar numbers of cessation attempts but those in better-off groups are more likely to succeed. 24 It is an ongoing concern that many tobacco control strategies have greater effects on cessation rates among better-off groups vis-à-vis disadvantaged groups; 25 ii an effective ban would enforce cessation equally across social groups, avoiding these inegalitarian effects.

The idea that a ban would enhance equality in health outcomes assumes that those who quit as a result of a ban will substitute smoking with something less harmful to their health. The fact that, as we noted above, cessation is associated with such substantially improved health outcomes suggests that those who quit do so in ways that are overall beneficial for their health. It is not implausible that many of those who would quit as a result of a ban (many of whom, as we note below, are very motivated to quit) would see similarly improved health prospect. However, much will depend on how exactly a ban is phased in and the extent to which it is accompanied by measures to help smokers quit.

Our assessment of a ban should be based on its likely effects not only on health inequalities but on inequalities more broadly conceived. One important concern is that, while unequal smoking rates across different socio-economic groups mean that the health loss averted by a ban should be much greater among disadvantaged groups, a ban could also impose additional burdens on these smokers. As Gostin emphasises, a complete ban would leave many highly addicted smokers in withdrawal and distress, 26 many of them from vulnerable populations, including the poor, prisoners and the homeless, as well as those with mental health problems, for whom the immediate effects of quitting might be more complicated and/or more difficult to deal with. 27

More generally, being disadvantaged—be it socio-economically or in other ways—may also affect people's ability to respond or adapt to a ban. Different ways of ‘phasing in’ a ban might help address these concerns, as could the availability of suitable substitutes, such as e-cigarettes. For example, a ban could be accompanied by free NRT for those on low incomes, prison populations or those in mental health institutions.

For some smokers, the burdens imposed by a ban may be so significant that they will not be compensated for by the benefits cessation would bring; smokers in their 80s or 90s might be a case in point. Limited licensing schemes might be a suitable strategy for this group. Importantly, as we explain in more detail below, these concerns arise in relation to the current generation of smokers and will have much less significance with respect to future generations, who—because of the ban—would not become smokers in the first place. We return to this issue in the section ‘Banning cigarettes: pros and cons’.

Freedom and autonomy

An important concern about our proposal is that a ban would pose an undue restriction on individual freedom and autonomy. Regarding freedom, we accept that any restriction of the available opportunities reduces freedom of choice. iii However, more freedom is not always better, nor is it always preferred. The disvalue of a particular restriction on freedom depends both on the interest people have in using the opportunity that is being removed, and on the interest people have in having or keeping the opportunity as an opportunity , whether or not they use it. Even non-smokers may have an interest in having the opportunity to smoke: this might be quite a specific interest (eg, in resisting temptation) or a more general interest in having a wide range of options.

Autonomy we understand here as self-direction, involving both an internal and an external aspect. Internal autonomy is the absence of internal obstacles to self-rule, such as ignorance, poor self-confidence or sense of self-worth, incoherent desires or preferences, and various psychological conditions such as clinical depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder. External autonomy is the absence of external obstacles to self-rule, most obviously various malign influences from others to manipulate one's deliberations and so undermine one's independence. iv So understood, a ban will not necessarily reduce autonomy. Quite to the contrary, to the extent that a ban frees many smokers of a debilitating addiction, it strengthens their internal autonomy.

A ban may fail to respect individual autonomy. Respecting autonomy, we propose, requires abstaining from frustrating the choices of relatively autonomous people. We accept that there are strong reasons to respect autonomy in this sense. While significant shortfalls from full autonomy reduce our reasons to respect choices, they do not fully eliminate such reasons; interference still requires some justification. v Indeed, since people are typically quite prone to make choices that are far from fully autonomous, we think that almost any choice should warrant some respect. Note that one may choose something even if one does not find the freedom to do so important, or indeed even if one would prefer not to have this freedom. Such choices indicate some sort of inner conflict, but it may still be disrespectful of others to interfere with them.

Freedom and respect for autonomy, as we have described them, can pull in different directions when it comes to evaluating a ban on cigarettes. An autonomous smoker may choose to restrict her own freedom to smoke. For example, she may engage her partner in keeping their shared home free of cigarettes. If someone prevents her from making this arrangement, this protects her freedom to smoke but fails to respect her autonomy. Similarly, smokers may try to engage their government in keeping their society free of cigarettes (in fact, many smokers would welcome a ban imposed by the government; we return to this issue in the section ‘Preferences and endorsement’); for these smokers, a ban, by restricting their freedom, will respect their autonomy.

Respect for autonomy can also part ways with well-being considerations. A person may autonomously choose to smoke because she does not care about her future well-being or because she falsely believes that a shorter and less healthy life will not decrease her well-being (eg, because she believes, at 21, that she will never want to live past the age of 40 anyway). We have reason both to respect this choice and to protect this person's lifetime well-being.

The next three sections address three related considerations that have been taken to strengthen the case for a ban: the degree to which smoking choices are less than fully voluntary, the limited rationality of these choices and the fact that many smokers do not endorse their smoking choices. Sometimes, these factors are explicitly invoked in relation to freedom or autonomy, sometimes they are invoked as arguments in their own right. As will become apparent, we believe that these considerations can indeed play an important role in the argument for a ban; however, their role has been overstated in the literature and must be qualified in various respects.

Voluntariness

The most comprehensive philosophical argument for strict regulation of smoking (though not explicitly a complete ban on cigarettes) has arguably been put forth by Robert Goodin, especially in his 1989 book, No Smoking: The Ethical Issues . One of Goodin's central arguments for tobacco regulation starts from the idea that because smokers typically have not fully appreciated the risks of smoking, and because smoking is addictive, the associated risks are not voluntarily assumed. This, in Goodin's argument, makes interference with smoking choices much less problematic than interference with other kinds of choices.

Goodin proposes that people are often not sufficiently informed about the consequences of smoking. Being sufficiently informed, on his account, requires not only being able to state the relevant probabilities about risks but also to ‘appreciate them in an emotionally genuine manner’ (ref. 33 , p. 24, citing Gerald Dworkin 34 ). Goodin does not seem to believe that being uninformed completely removes any reasons against regulation, but rather that the less informed a choice is, the less reason we have to abstain from frustrating it (ref. 33 , p. 21).

We share Goodin's concern that smokers must know the risks associated with smoking if we are to fully respect their choice to smoke. Knowledge of the risks of smoking is now well spread in developed countries, but much less so in many developing countries, 35 making the concern about involuntarily incurred risk highly relevant in these countries. This is important not least because 82% of the world's smokers currently live in low-income and middle-income countries. 36

However, Goodin's claim that in order to be sufficiently informed we must also have an emotionally genuine appreciation of these risks amounts to a very strong requirement. It may be very difficult for a 20-year-old to appreciate, ‘in an emotionally genuine manner’, the suffering she might endure as a victim of emphysema 40 years later, especially if she lacks experience of major illness in herself or those close to her. Such a demanding requirement may be more reasonable for choices with immediate effects, but one of the problems with smoking is precisely that people typically start young and suffer the consequences much later. Goodin's criterion of what counts as informed choice may turn out to be too high a bar to clear for most of the choices people make, including our most important choices, such as whether and with whom to have children. On Goodin’s account, we have strong reasons to interfere with such choices if we believe them to be unwise. It is beyond the scope of this article to fully engage with Goodin's arguments on its own terms. However, we believe that the best argument for a tobacco ban does not depend on such a controversial interpretation of informed choice. We think that the argument for a ban can succeed even if we accept that we have strong reasons to respect the choices smokers make, even if they do not fully appreciate the risks of smoking.

The second factor Goodin emphasises is the addictiveness of smoking. He argues that while it is not impossible to overcome addictions, what matters normatively is whether the addictiveness makes it ‘unreasonably costly’ (ref. 33 , p. 25) to do so: if the addiction is so strong “that even someone with ‘normal and reasonable self-control’ would succumb to it, we have little compunction in saying that the addict's free will was sufficiently impaired that his apparent consent counts for naught” (ref. 33 , pp. 25–6, citing Gary Watson 37 ). This condition, Goodin argues, is met in the case of smoking. Thus, a smoker's continuing to smoke cannot be taken as consent to the risks involved. Further, many smokers become addicted below the age of consent and so, Goodin argues, they cannot be taken to have consented to the risk of becoming addicted to nicotine.

While we share some of Goodin's concerns about the implications of addiction, the heterogeneity of smokers means that his argument applies to fewer smokers than Goodin suggests. Consider first the matter of age. It is often claimed that the quota of smokers who become addicted below the age of 21 is extremely high; Goodin puts this number at 95%. However, these numbers are typically based on studies that ask respondents at what age they first started smoking. This question may lead them to focus on their first ever cigarette, which need not indicate the beginning of addiction. Studies that instead ask respondents when they started smoking regularly indicate that the number of smokers who took up smoking as minors is substantially smaller. Surveys of UK smokers indicate that 55–66% start before the age of 18 (ref. 38 , p. 42, ref. 39 , p. 11).

Even regular smoking, however, is not necessarily a good indicator of addiction. Some adolescents may be able to maintain intermittent smoking without developing dependence. 40 Among adults, too, not all smokers become dependent. One study finds that almost 40% of daily smokers fail to meet the criteria of nicotine dependence (though they may exhibit individual symptoms of addiction, such as difficulties abstaining from cigarettes). 41 While there is disagreement about how to define addiction and what proportion of smokers meet the required criteria, there may be a significant proportion of smokers to whom this part of Goodin's argument does not apply.

Furthermore, it is not clear that addiction fully undermines the voluntariness of smoking in all regards. Even if addiction makes it ‘unreasonably costly’ to abstain from one's next cigarette, there may still be scope for devising a longer-term cessation strategy. This kind of long-term planning is arguably less susceptible to the forces of addiction. The addictiveness of tobacco may of course still thwart any cessation attempts smokers do make (we return to this below); but Goodin's argument, by not addressing this issue, proceeds too quickly.

Finally, irrespective of the degree to which addictiveness undermines the voluntariness of smoking, we are more concerned than Goodin that we have some reason to abstain from frustrating even those choices that are substantially non-voluntary. As John Christman notes, “I might know that a person is to some degree under the sway of external pressures that are severely limiting her ability to govern her life and make independent choices. But as long as she has not lost the basic ability to reflectively consider her options and make choices, if I intervene against her will (for her own good), I show less respect for her as a person than if I allow her to make her own mistakes”. 42

Our scepticism about Goodin’s argument should not be taken to imply that we think addictiveness is irrelevant. It is certainly true that many smokers are addicted and have become addicted in their youth; we agree that we have less reason to respect these smokers’ choice to smoke. Moreover, the addictiveness of smoking is often an intermediary cause in people becoming long-term smokers and thus facing substantial health risks. However, the lack of consent argument may apply to a smaller proportion of smokers than Goodin suggests.

More generally, we think that the broader concern here—whether or not smokers voluntarily accept the risks of smoking—should play a somewhat different role in the argument. On the one hand, as we have said, the degree of voluntariness affects the degree to which the choices involved are autonomous and so to what degree we have reason to respect them. At the same time, though, even if risks were accepted in a fully voluntary manner, this does not mean that the resulting harm is not undesirable or that we should not seek to prevent it.

Harms can be undesirable even if they result from risks that are voluntarily assumed. If, for example, I risk my health by donating a kidney to a relative, this does not detract from the undesirability of any ensuing harms. There may be an exception for harms that are actively sought out: a person may want to die, or want to amputate an arm, where this is not merely instrumental to some aim that can be reached in less harmful ways. However, when a person simply accepts a risk of what is for her an undesirable outcome, this is clearly not by itself a reason to disregard the risk or outcome.

Jason Hanna makes a persuasive argument against tying the justifiability of paternalism to voluntarily assumed risks. 43 Hanna gives the example of a reckless hiker who voluntarily abstains from gathering information on which bridges in the area are dangerous. Later on, the hiker unknowingly starts to cross a dangerous bridge, not because he wants to court danger but simply to finish his hike. If respect for autonomy precludes from moral consideration voluntarily assumed risks, then a bystander has no reason to intervene, which seems an unacceptable conclusion (ref. 43 , pp. 424–5). Similarly, we cannot conclude that we should abstain from intervening with smoking simply because smokers have voluntarily assumed the health risks.

Irrationality

A further concern in the normative debate about smoking and about how governments ought to respond to it is that smoking choices are in some sense irrational. This is the argument Sarah Conly pursues in her recent book, Against Autonomy: Justifying Coercive Paternalism , where she argues that we should often disregard, at least to some extent, smokers’ apparent preference for smoking. Goodin takes similar considerations to bolster his argument from lack of consent. The argument from irrationality can start from either impairments in the decision-making of smokers (in particular, cognitive biases) or, relatedly, from a discrepancy between smokers’ own goals and their choices.

Invoking impairment, Goodin argues that intervention into the choice to smoke is especially warranted if smokers’ false beliefs are caused by cognitive biases. Goodin points to evidence that smokers are subject to three biases, which are now most often called optimistic bias (‘wishful thinking’), the availability heuristic (‘anchoring’) and hyperbolic or temporal discounting (‘time discounting’). 33 As is more thoroughly researched and more widely appreciated now than when Goodin wrote his book, these biases are quite general, and not particular to smokers. 44 Therefore, either of two conclusions are possible: either the charge that smoking choices in particular are impaired loses its force or the charge is expanded to very many decisions we make. The latter option is the one pursued by Conly.

Conly cites a wide range of research in behavioural psychology and concludes: “We generally suffer from many flaws in instrumental reasoning that interfere with our ability to make effective and efficient choices” (ref. 45 , p. 23). The same conclusion has motivated Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein to promote what they call libertarian paternalism—benevolent structuring of choice situations that does not significantly affect the outcomes of the various options in the choice set. 46 , 47 Conly argues that libertarian paternalist measures are insufficient to ensure that people's choices promote their well-being and that we have no good reason to abstain from coercive measures. Her argument, however, is thoroughly consequentialist and does not give a role to respect for autonomy as we understand it. Instead, she assumes that we have reason to respect autonomy only if this is an effective means of promoting some other goal: “the basic premise of liberalism […] is that we are basically rational, prudent creatures who may thus, and should thus, direct themselves autonomously” (ref. 45 , p. 30). Conly rejects this premise and draws the conclusion that “when it comes to respect for autonomy, we can see that our belief that autonomous actions should not be interfered with was based on a mistake” (ref. 45 , p. 192).

Since we believe that there is reason to respect an agent's choices, even when these choices do not promote the agent's well-being, we find the argument from irrationality unpersuasive. Behavioural research may have proven that poor instrumental rationality is a general aspect of human decision-making. This, however, does not necessarily undermine our reasons to respect choices that are about as autonomous as choices typically are. What would be more relevant is if smokers in particular were prone to irrationality. There is some evidence that addiction causes behaviour that may be deemed irrational, though this is disputed. vi

We now turn from the proposal that poor instrumental rationality is an impairment to the more consequentialist observation that poor instrumental rationality, impaired or not, is prone to create a discrepancy between goals and actions. It is clear that people make choices that do not further their own well-being. What has been open to interpretation and debate is whether this means that people fail to effectively promote their goals or whether, instead, they might have goals other than furthering their own well-being. The extensive study of cognitive biases has given us some reason to favour the first interpretation: if people are under the constant influence of cognitive bias, we can expect that they will not effectively further their own goals. Therefore, the fact that they do not promote their own well-being need not indicate that this is not their goal.

Conly argues that “[w]hat we need to do is to help one another avoid mistakes so that we may all end up where we want to be ” (ref. 45 , p. 2, emphasis added). Where we want to be, Conly assumes, there are no cigarettes. She describes smoking as a “bad course[] of action” (ref. 45 , p. 8) and an instance of people “choos[ing] poorly” (ref. 45 , p. 9). Smokers, she says, “spend a disproportionate amount of their income on a habit that will probably leave them in worse health and possibly shorten their life without bestowing compensating benefits ” (ref. 45 , p. 33, emphasis added). Goodin similarly argues that “what is involved here is a weak form of paternalism, working within the individual's own theory of the good and merely imposing upon him better means of achieving his own ends ” (ref. 50 , p. 23, emphasis added).

While we agree that we should be concerned about a possible discrepancy between smokers’ goals and their choices, Conly's argument does not give sufficient weight to the fact that many people find smoking pleasurable and enjoy the taste or the buzz and relaxing effects that come from nicotine. As summarised in a recent study, “nicotine induces pleasure and reduces stress and anxiety. Smokers use it to modulate levels of arousal and to control mood. Smoking improves concentration, reaction time, and performance of certain tasks” (ref. 51 , p. 2298). The behavioural components of smoking may also be experienced as relaxing. 52 It is certainly not obvious that the net effect of smoking on well-being is necessarily negative. While Conly briefly discusses pleasure in the context of tobacco and acknowledges the pleasure addicted smokers experience from cigarettes (mainly the pleasure of alleviating withdrawal symptoms) (ref. 45 , pp. 170–1), she dismisses too quickly the possibility that those who smoke but are not addicted can derive substantial pleasure from cigarettes. vii This is particularly important because, as we noted above, a significant portion of smokers may not in fact be addicted.

Could these pleasures indeed outweigh the risks and so make smoking consistent with the goal of furthering one's own well-being? This, we think, can vary, depending primarily on an individual's level of tobacco consumption. Consider lung cancer, which is one of the most severe conditions associated with smoking (though, of course, not the only one; lung cancer causes less than half of the excess mortality among smokers). 8 For heavy, life-long smokers, studies estimate the risk of developing lung cancer over the course of one's life to be up to 25% compared with 0.2–1% for never-smokers. 54 For these smokers, it seems plausible to claim that the benefits could not possibly outweigh the risks. However, this is much less clear at lower levels of consumption. Though smoking 1–4 cigarettes a day, as noted above, increases the risk of lung cancer by 3–5 times, 12 this must be seen in relation to the very low risk for never-smokers. Further, while the literature emphasises that there is no ‘safe’ or ‘risk-free’ level of tobacco consumption, those who quit before age 30 appear to avoid almost all of the excess mortality risk associated with continued smoking. 8 , 9 , 55 Given that smoking can further such goals as pleasure, manifesting a romantic nonchalance and social belonging, these risks seem potentially quite acceptable. viii Moreover, given that the cost of cessation is typically higher than the cost of not starting, it may be more rational to keep smoking than to start.

Further, even when the harms of long-time smoking and the limited benefits it brings combine to make smoking apparently irrational for the typical smoker, it does not follow that we should completely disregard these choices. Some limited irrationality is common and should not automatically undermine respect for individuals’ choices. At the same time, outright irrationality, caused by smoking-specific cognitive failures or simply inferred from severe lack of goal orientation, may remove or significantly weaken our reasons to respect choice. To the extent that smokers display such irrationality, this strengthens the case for a ban. However, the degree to which this concern applies to individual smokers will vary and we should be cautious in giving it too much weight in our argument.

While the irrationality of smoking has played an important role in arguments for tight tobacco control, we have emphasised two broad concerns in this section: first, smoking choices may be more rational than is often assumed and, second, even irrational choices warrant more respect than is typically allowed in the literature on smoking. Our argument for a ban on cigarettes focuses instead on the well-being losses it would avert; that people may be irrational and not secure these benefits for themselves in the absence of a ban is an additional consideration in its favour but should play a much smaller role in the argument than it does for Goodin and Conly.

Preferences and endorsement

A further factor supporting the case for a ban is that smokers often do not endorse their preference for smoking: They have a preference to smoke but also a preference about that preference : they would prefer not to have it. In a 1991 article, Goodin argues that public policy “can hardly be said to be paternalistic in any morally offensive respect [if] the preferences which it overrides are ones which people themselves wish they did not have” (ref. 56 , p. 48). For Goodin, the fact that smokers typically go through many failed cessation attempts shows that their preference for smoking is often not endorsed. The preference for quitting, on the other hand, typically has second-order endorsement (ref. 56 , pp. 47–48).

Studies indeed suggest that the majority of smokers want to quit. US data puts this proportion at 70%, 57 UK data at 64% of smokers. 39 Further, in a study with participants from Canada, the USA, the UK and Australia, about 90% of smokers agreed with the statement, “If you had to do it over again, you would not have started smoking”. 58 This indicates that many smokers themselves do not find smoking consistent with their goals, lending support both to concerns about irrationality and non-voluntariness, which we discussed above. It also indicates, more directly, that many smokers are unhappy with their smoking.

However, if (endorsed) preferences are to guide policy decisions, then a policy designed to prevent smokers from smoking may also need to be evaluated based on smokers’ preferences about that policy : it is quite possible that I would prefer not to prefer to smoke, but that I also prefer that the government not prevent my smoking. In fact, Goodin seems to assume that smokers will themselves be opposed to regulation (ref. 56 , p. 42). It is not clear why, on his account, such preferences about policy would not tell against a ban.

Looking at preferences about a ban, a somewhat different picture emerges. Many smokers would welcome a ban, though not a majority. Studies from the USA, England, Hong Kong, New Zealand and the Australian state of Victoria suggest that among current smokers about 25–38% would support the introduction of a ban over the next 10 years or so. 59–63

Where does this leave the argument for a ban? Though Goodin’s treatment is not sufficiently sensitive to vast individual variations, the high degree to which smokers want and try to quit certainly weakens those reasons against a ban that are based on respect for autonomy and the value of freedom: it is arguably more important to respect choices that are endorsed by the chooser, and people generally have a greater interest in preserving options that they would like to make use of. We must also consider smokers’ preferences about the ban. As noted, studies from several countries indicate that about a third of them support such a proposal; for these smokers, respect for autonomy actually tells in favour of a ban.

Importantly, people will not have equal ‘stakes’ in this decision. On the one hand, those supporting the ban may be heavy smokers who find themselves unable to quit, seeking to free themselves of a substantial burden on their health, well-being and finances. On the other hand, those who are not addicted and enjoy the occasional cigarette may find that a ban removes a source of pleasure for them. Non-smokers, too, may value the opportunity to smoke; as we noted above, people can value opportunities even if they have no intention of making use of them. However, if—as seems likely—very few non-smokers actually have any intention of using this option, their interest in keeping it open should weigh much less heavily in decisions about tobacco control. Simply ‘adding up’ these different preferences may, therefore, not be an appropriate way to give them the respect they are due. ix

Banning cigarettes: pros and cons

It is time to bring together the various strands of our argument and consider how they inform the desirability or otherwise of a ban on the sale of cigarettes. Much of the literature on strict tobacco regulation focuses on various ways in which smoking choices are significantly less than fully autonomous—involuntariness, irrationality and lack of endorsement of smoking choices are the most prominent considerations in the literature, as we discussed in the preceding sections. We agree that these factors are crucial; however, contrary to how they are viewed by other proponents of strict tobacco regulation (such as Conly and Goodin), these factors do not by themselves establish that a cigarette ban is justified, for two reasons: first, many smokers and/or smoking choices do not in fact meet the identified criterion: a significant proportion of smokers may not be addicted, not all smoking choices reflect an irrational assessment of benefits and risks, and so on. Second, when smoking choices do fall short of requirements of autonomy in these ways, interference with these choices becomes more acceptable but it does not become wholly unproblematic. As we discussed above, the primary concern for us is the well-being loss that is associated with cigarettes. We accept that a ban would interfere with some (reasonably) autonomous choices as well as restrict individual freedom, but these negative implications are far outweighed by the well-being gains a ban would imply for both current and future generations.

What speaks against a ban is, first, its negative effects on freedom, in terms of the loss of a valued opportunity to smoke and, second, its failure to respect the autonomy of the many smokers who apparently choose to smoke. With respect to the first concern, we noted that non-smokers have an interest in keeping the option of smoking open and a cigarette ban will involve a restriction of their freedom, even if they have no intention of consuming cigarettes. While it is important to acknowledge this point, we must also emphasise that this is a fairly minimal cost, especially relative to what is at stake for smokers.

The degree to which smokers value the freedom to smoke is likely to vary. Indeed, about a third would favour a ban, which indicates that they do not value the opportunity to smoke very highly, or at least that this value is outweighed by other considerations. Furthermore, it seems that the majority of smokers plan to quit and wish they had never started. Therefore, the freedom to smoke may be unimportant for many—possibly the majority of—smokers.

Regarding autonomy, we noted that by removing a source of addiction a ban would contribute to many current smokers’ internal autonomy. This is, of course, a strong reason in favour of a ban. At the same time, a ban fails to respect the choices of the many people who currently smoke, especially those who wish to continue. We have discussed how lack of voluntariness, irrationality and lack of endorsement may mean that many smoking choices warrant less respect than choices typically warrant. Of these facts, lack of voluntariness due to early smoking initiation and due to addiction, lack of second-order endorsement of the preference to smoke and a positive preference for a ban strike us as the most significant. However, many choices to smoke are not burdened by any of these factors, and even when they are, they warrant some respect.

These concerns with freedom and autonomy must be weighed against what we considered the two main considerations supporting a ban: first, the well-being gained by averting substantial health losses that many individuals would otherwise face. This includes averting the expected increase from the current 5–6 million annual premature deaths from tobacco, many of which occur in middle age, and eventually reducing this number to zero, as well as avoiding many non-fatal but severe health conditions. Second, the positive effects on equality achieved by removing a source of poor health that disproportionately affects those who are already disadvantaged.

We recognised that some smokers’ well-being might be negatively affected by a ban. This is most likely for two kinds of smokers. First, those who enjoy smoking and only smoke occasionally and thus face much smaller health risks that are outweighed by the pleasures they gain—think, for example, of people who like to smoke a cigar a few times a year. Second, those who, despite substantial cigarette use, will not see substantial benefits from cessation, for example, because they are very old or fatally ill. Cessation support and limited licensing schemes may help this latter group but do not necessarily address this concern fully. While these burdens should not be downplayed, it must be noted that a ban would lower well-being for only a small minority of people and only for the current generation.

The group that stands to gain the most from a ban, on the other hand, are lifelong heavy smokers for whom the pleasures of smoking are not worth the risks and who, because of tobacco's addictive properties, find it extremely difficult or even impossible to effectively act on their preference not to smoke. These smokers are often among the most disadvantaged in society in other regards. Significant well-being gains can also be expected for those who smoke less, and even much less—as we noted above, even low levels of tobacco consumption can be associated with significant health risks.

As far as the current generation is concerned, then, four factors speak in favour of a ban: first, very large benefits in aggregate well-being. Second, reduced inequality in well-being because the benefits accrue largely to the disadvantaged. Third, improvements in internal autonomy for those who would prefer not to smoke. Fourth, respect for the autonomy of that proportion of the smoking population who want a ban (the evidence we cited suggests that this is about a third). These considerations stand against three opposing considerations: first, diminished well-being for those smokers whose well-being is improved by smoking (which we consider to be a small number of smokers). Second, a reduction in freedom that, as we argued, should be given less weight where non-smokers are concerned, and which is unimportant to many smokers (at least to those who want a ban and perhaps also to many who do not but who do not want to smoke). Third, a ban will fail to respect the autonomy of current smokers—though some of our reasons for such respect are weakened by lack of voluntariness, irrationality and lack of endorsement. This failure of respect is arguably greatest with regard to that proportion of smokers who do not favour a ban (about two-thirds). To us, despite the weighty considerations opposing a ban, the balance is very much in its favour.

Consider now all those potential future people who have not yet faced the choice of whether or not to smoke. With an effective ban, these people will not be tempted by the presence of cigarettes. They will not encounter social settings where smoking is advantageous. They may simply regard smoking a historical curiosity. While their freedom is restricted by a ban, it seems likely that the lost option will be quite insignificant to most of them. Some future people might have improved their well-being by smoking, some will surely oppose the ban and some will think they would have liked to smoke. For some of them, the choice to smoke may have been rational and/or endorsed. We expect, however, that this group will form a small minority and a significantly smaller section of the population than is the subsection of the present population who smoke and oppose a ban. For future people, therefore, the arguments against a ban are much weaker than for current people. The arguments for a ban, on the other hand, are just as strong: well-being and equality will be promoted by preventing the harms of smoking, for future people as for current people. With respect to future generations, therefore, the case for a ban seems even more clear-cut than for the current generation.

Some of these future people, it should be noted, are already alive, in the form of children who are too young to have faced the choice of whether or not to smoke. Especially in poor countries, this group is not as large as one would like since children encounter smoking very early. Still, >600 million people are below the age of five. x This group will supply many of the 10 million annually who are expected to face premature death from smoking from 2050 and on. For them, as well as for future people, the case for a ban seems overwhelming.

For those who consider freedom and/or respect for autonomy more important than we do, or promotion of autonomy and/or well-being and/or equality less important, taking a more long-term perspective is likely to shift the balance of reasons to favour a ban. Indeed, it seems to us merely a matter of how long a perspective one takes. If we consider all the people who will be born in this present century, it is hard to see how prevention of the more than one billion expected premature deaths and the substantial individual suffering that comes with it could be outweighed by respect for the choice of some present (and some future would-be) smokers and concern for the restrictions on freedom involved.

One concern we might have about making the case for a cigarette ban is that of a ‘slippery slope’: once we acknowledge the possibility that cigarettes should be banned, what would stop us from banning, say, certain types of food, alcohol or risky sports? In response, it is crucial to emphasise that arguments about banning or legalising any particular substances or activities need to be made on their own terms and focus on the characteristics of the activity or substance in question. Much of the argument we present here relies on a combination of features that is specific to cigarettes and could not be easily extended to other substances—such as the high risks for long-term users and the high level of addictiveness. At the same time, we think that the broad strategy we pursued here—going beyond questions about individual freedom to consider the well-being impact of smoking on different individuals—could be helpful in discussing the status of other substances and activities.

Philosophical arguments for bans typically focus on particular features of smoking choices—that they are irrational, non-voluntary and/or unendorsed—that are taken to make it (fairly) unproblematic for policymakers to interfere. However, these arguments are too quick in two respects: first, many smoking choices do not, in fact, share the identified characteristic. Second, while irrationality, non-voluntariness and lack of endorsement may weaken our reasons for protecting choices, they certainly do not remove them entirely. Much of the opposition to bans rests precisely on the understanding that we have reason to respect people's choices, even when these choices are problematic in various respects. Our argument has sought to stake out a more nuanced position, which acknowledges and gives substantial weight to the potential of a ban to disrespect individual autonomy and restrict freedom but emphasises the well-being losses such a ban could avert.

Of course, the argument for a ban faces not only philosophical but also political opposition. However, the idea is slowly gaining traction in the tobacco control community and various ways of phasing in such a ban are being explored. What is more, electronic cigarettes and the debate surrounding them could provide a helpful entry point towards a serious discussion about a ban on conventional cigarettes. E-cigarettes deliver nicotine to users in a way that is much more similar to conventional cigarettes than other currently available nicotine delivery systems. While the jury is still out on the harmfulness of e-cigarettes to users and bystanders, 65 there is a decent chance that these devices will turn out to be much less harmful than conventional cigarettes. Appropriate regulation could help ensure that these harms remain below acceptable levels. To the extent that e-cigarettes can provide a substitute for conventional cigarettes, many of the costs associated with a ban—in terms of limiting freedom and forcing current smokers to quit—would be alleviated. At the same time, many of the concerns about e-cigarettes—for example, that they would act as a ‘gateway’ to conventional cigarettes 66 and that they would ‘renormalise’ smoking 67 —would fall away if conventional cigarettes are effectively banned.

Some readers may not agree with the weighing we have given to the different pros and cons of banning cigarettes. For these readers, a more cautious conclusion is that it is important to recognise the variety of considerations at stake, as well as the fact that the costs of a ban would diminish with respect to future generations as these would grow up without cigarettes. Our conclusion, however, is that in light of the substantial death and disease it could avert, the case for a complete and effective ban on the sale of cigarettes is very strong.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Adina Preda for helpful comments on an earlier draft. KG's work is supported by the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare (grant no. 2009-2189). KV's work is supported by the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture (grant no. 172569).

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Competing interests None declared.

Provenance and peer review Commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

↵ i Note that many proposals are not alternatives to a ban but rather strategies for its implementation. This includes gradual phase-out schemes, such as the Tobacco Free Generation legislation currently under consideration by Tasmania’s government. 7

↵ ii A possible exception to this appears to be increased taxation. However, taxation comes with a set of egalitarian concerns of its own; see Voigt 19 for further discussion.

↵ iii This is in accordance with the mainstream liberal tradition whose proponents include Isaiah Berlin, 28 Joel Feinberg 29 and Ian Carter. 30 This is, we believe, a quite intuitive way to think about freedom.

↵ iv By defining autonomy negatively, we hope to remain somewhat neutral between various more substantial accounts. Sometimes, external autonomy is taken to require freedom (ref. 31 , p. 204). Since we consider freedom separately, we will leave this possibility to the side here.

↵ v For an extensive treatment of respect for less than fully autonomous choice, see Grill. 32

↵ vi For a range of perspectives, see Elster and Skog; 48 for a convincing case that addicts do display some particular irrationality, see Rachlin. 49

↵ vii The idea that smoking might be pleasurable typically receives little attention in the literature. For an interesting discussion of how the relationship between harm and pleasure is viewed in public health discourses about smoking, particularly in the context of e-cigarettes, see Bell and Keane. 53

↵ viii This should not detract from the concern that unfair inequalities can affect the costs and benefits associated with smoking and thereby the extent to which the risks of smoking become acceptable. For example, as we mentioned in the section ‘Equality’, social norms around smoking vary across social groups, with smoking often playing an important social role in disadvantaged communities but much less so in affluent ones; this means that not smoking can come with a cost for those in disadvantaged communities that does not exist for those in wealthier ones. That this can make the risks of smoking more acceptable in some social groups than others should be viewed as an unfair disadvantage. 19

↵ ix On respect for divergent preferences in groups, cf. discussion on group consent by Grill. 64

↵ x CIA World Factbook, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/xx.html

Linked Articles

Mini-Symposium: Regulating smoking Ethics of tobacco harm reduction from a liberal perspective Yvette van der Eijk Journal of Medical Ethics 2015; 42 273-277 Published Online First: 26 Nov 2015. doi: 10.1136/medethics-2015-102974
The concise argument Paternalism on Mars Dominic Wilkinson Journal of Medical Ethics 2016; 42 271-272 Published Online First: 25 Apr 2016. doi: 10.1136/medethics-2016-103598

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Should Smoking Be Banned in Public Places? Essay

Introduction, thesis statement, reasons for the ban of smoking in public places, the opposing views, economic point of view, social point of view, works cited.

Many governments across the globe have moved to ban smocking in public places. Whether the action is justified or not, is a matter of fierce debate. Often, the proponents of the proposition carry the day arguing that smoke from cigarette inhaled by non-smokers poses health risks.

Thus, the banning action is based on the premise that non-smokers should be protected from risks associated with proximity to cigarette smoke (Warner 71). The other premise is that effects of smoke whether directly inhaled or partially taken in proximity with smokers are the same. However, little attention has been given to the opposing views which have always been dismissed as baseless.

Most academic studies and researches have cited individual rights as the basis for smocking in public ignoring other factors such as economy, social as well as other individualistic reasons (Viscusi 31). Moreover, much attention has also been given to dangers posed by cigarette smoking specifically health problems while ignoring the opponent side of view.

Further, little research has also been conducted to ascertain some of the issues that support public smoking or smoking in general (Viscusi 31). This does not necessarily mean that smoking should be allowed. However, other factors should be considered. Besides, various options should be explored before imposing a ban on smoking cigarette in public.

Smoking in public places poses health risks to non smokers and should be banned. This paper will be discussing whether cigarette smoking should not be allowed in public places. First the paper will explore dangers associated with smoking in public and not on those who smoke, but on non-smokers.

The paper will then examine these propositions and ascertain whether they hold and establish counter arguments against the propositions. It is concluded that even though smoking poses health risks among the individuals, economic, social and individual values must be taken into consideration before a blanket ban on the practice is imposed (Abedian et al. 71).

The proponents of this rule have several arguments majorly based on scientific studies and results from health institutions. These arguments cannot be disputed, but over reliance on them is what makes the arguments a bit absurd (Warner 71).

However, various researches have always pointed health risks associated with smoking. Besides, smoking is an environmental hazard as much of the content in the cigarette contains chemicals and hydrocarbons that are considered to be dangerous to both life and environment (Lott and Richard 102).

Biologists and epidemiologists point out passive smoking is harmful to health. In other words, those who come in contact with second-hand smoke risk their health statuses (Lott and Richard 102). Several risks are associated with second-hand smoke that majority come in contact with in public places.

In most cases, partial smokers suffer from cardiac arrests, lung cancers, central nervous system impairments as well as other diseases caused by carcinogenic chemicals from cigarette smoke (Viscusi 35).

Other health conditions caused by smoking include asthma and other respiratory infections resulting from hydrocarbons and ammonia present in the second-hand smoke. Partial smokers also suffer from eye irritations, headaches and flu as a result of smoke particles (Viscusi and Joseph 10).

Findings from other scientific studies indicate that smoking reduces individual lifespan by a minimum of ten percent. The discovery also indicates that women are likely to suffer eleven years off their life expectancy. Moreover, people who smoke are more susceptible to certain forms of cancer that would have been avoided without smoking (Viscusi and Joseph 10). Smoking is injurious to health.

Those who have opposed the view on smoking ban in public places have been accused of citing individual rights to support their actions. In as much as they might be true, the weak point in this argument is that the rule applies to both smokers and non-smokers (Abedian et al. 71). Every one has a right to smoke and also not to smoke. Therefore, the argument based on the legal rights of an individual remains ambiguous.

From the economic point of view, smoking is an individual choice. Like any other product these individuals may be willing to buy, cigarette is a commodity that its consumers would want and willing to purchase. Indeed, people make everyday choices founded on their preferences, and these choices are often associated with hazards and reservations (Warner 71).

All social interactions that individuals are involved in could be associated with risks which, in most cases are greater than risks related to smoke that smokers’ exhale. The reason is that the expected outcomes of the social interactions are greater than the risks as well as the costs involved (Viscusi 40).

Therefore, it would be ridiculous to make a conclusion that smoking in public should be prohibited simply because it presents a number of risks.

Based on this argument, the number of fatalities from other causes such as accidents, sexual relations, other diseases such as flu and pneumonia which are communicable and easily spread in public places are by far numerous than the fatalities caused by the second-hand smoke.

In other words, the risk of contracting other diseases, dying from AIDS as a result of sexual relations as well as dying from accidents are five times higher than the risk of dying from a second-hand smoke (Abedian et al. 71).

The other attribute of the economic proposition is that it examines the method through which individual choices can be reconciled based on their preferences (Viscusi and Joseph 44).

That is, individuals who smoke and those who tend to avoid second-hand smoke. According to the economic studies, primary institutes such as contractual freedom and property rights offer an effectual solution more than formal regulations in fulfilling personal preference (Viscusi and Joseph 44).

Another factor that should also be taken into consideration is the degree to which a place is considered public (Warner 71). It should be understood that most of the public places were previously private places. The difference is that owners allow the public to access them purely for commercial purposes.

As such, the role of property rights should be implemented to stop public smoking. In this regard, much of the places considered public are private such as the work places, restaurants, buses and bars. These places are opened for all manner of customers’ smokers as well as non smokers. The owner should specify the target customers who are purely non-smokers.

Therefore, any smoker who enters in these establishments is held liable for any risk of second hand smoking. On the other hand, an establishment may require that only smokers enter its establishment. In such a situation, any establishment will not be held responsible for any risks associated with second hand –smoke in a case non smoker enters the establishment.

In both scenarios, there is economic efficiency for all the parties concerned based on their preferences. However, in the circumstances that there is no specificity and the definition of the public, the whole process becomes chaotic (Warner 71).

Socially, smoking has been perceived as being fashionable and stylist. This perception has been carried over from generations to generations. Smoking is not something new rather it has been practiced for centuries. In a critical examination as to why people have been smoking for centuries, the reason is because they derived pleasure that was closely related to fashion and style.

That is why people still smoke and younger generations find themselves to be smoking despite health warnings or knowledge of health risks associated with the practice (Lott and Richard 102). This value should not be undermined as scientists could not explain why some smokers stay longer than those who smoke. Moreover, smoking is not the only cause of all health related diseases.

The best possible strategy to control tobacco consumption should be put in place. This will uphold individual’s self-esteem and appreciate society preferences. Scientists and other health proponents argue that people should not be guaranteed to smoke openly.

However, the economical approach stipulates that the management should not impose a ban on some individuals’ day to day choices. In fact, people’s preferences are highly regarded in the general public. Banning public smoking could favor certain communities while offend the treaty-liberty and material goods privileges.

Abedian, Iraj, Merwe Rowena, Nick Wilkins and Prabhat Jha. The Economics of Tobacco Control: Towards an Optimal Policy Mix . Cape Town: University of Cape Town, 1998. Print. p. 71.

Lott, John and Richard Manning. “Have Changing Liability Rules Compensated Workers Twice for Occupational Hazards? Earning Premiums and Cancer Risks.” Journal of Legal Studies , 29.1 (2000): 99-128. Print.

Viscusi, Kip and Joseph Aldy. “The Value of a Statistical Life: A Critical Review of Market Estimates throughout the World.” Journal of Risk and Uncertainty , 27.1 (2003): 5-76. Print.

Viscusi, Kip. “The Value of Life: Estimates with Risks by Occupation and Industry.” Economic Inquiry , 42.1 (2004): 29-48. Print.

Warner, Kenneth. The Economics of Tobacco and Health . Cape Town: University of Cape Town, 1998. Print. p. 71.

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The Smoking Ban: Arguments Comparison
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Ethical Problem of Smoking
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Health Care Costs for Smokers
Organizational Behavior in Health Care
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Diseases and Injuries
Family Health
Weight Management

How much of a difference does 30 pounds make, secondhand smoke and a sore throat, the effects of smoking on your respiratory system, negative externalities of eating unhealthy food, does smoking cigarettes stunt growth, three reasons why smoking should be banned.

Tobacco use is the major cause of preventable and premature death and disease worldwide, according to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC reports that 46 million Americans age 18 years and older smoke cigarettes, 443,000 smoking-related deaths occur annually in the U.S. Smoking affects the population, causes premature deaths and is a substantial financial burden to society.

Smoking affects the population in many ways. It affects smokers' health and controls their smoking habits and use of time, and the spiraling cost of tobacco makes it an expensive pastime. Secondhand smoke affects others and pollutes the environment. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, children are susceptible to the effects of secondhand smoke because they are growing and developing. Children exposed to secondhand smoke have increased risks of sudden infant death syndrome, middle ear infection, asthma, pneumonia and bronchitis.

Smoking affects the population in many ways.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, children are susceptible to the effects of secondhand smoke because they are growing and developing.

Preventable Deaths

Annually, one of every five deaths in the U.S. is related to smoking, due to conditions such as pneumonia, bronchitis, lung cancer and emphysema, according to the CDC website. Smoking may affect sexual performance and increase the risks of heart disease and infections. Deaths attributed to smoking varied from state to state during the years 2000 to 2004, with Alaska reporting 492 deaths and California reporting 36,687 deaths, notes the CDC. The good news is, according to a report from the CDC, some states show signs of improved health of their citizens and a decrease in smoking rates, deaths and health care costs due to increased awareness, education and resources available to help people fight the smoking habit.

Annually, one of every five deaths in the U.S. is related to smoking, due to conditions such as pneumonia, bronchitis, lung cancer and emphysema, according to the CDC website.

Smoking puts a financial burden on society. According to the CDC, this burden continues to rise, with approximately $193 billion spent annually in the United States—$97 billion from lost productivity and $96 billion due to smoking-related health care costs, respectively. The Society of Actuaries reported in 2006, which is the latest data available, that secondhand smoke costs the U.S. around $10 billion a year: about $5 billion in medical costs associated with secondhand smoke and $4.6 billion in lost wages—youth exposure was not included in these costs.

How Much of a Difference Does 30 Pounds Make?

Pros & Cons About Smoking

Side Effects of Shisha

How do I Stop Smoking Cigars?

Facts of Car Pollution

What Are the Effects of Smoking Menthol Cigarettes?

CDC: Data and Statistics
CDC: State Specific Smoking-Attributable Mortality and Years of Potential Productivity Lost: 2000 to 2004
Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights: Business Costs in Smoke-Filled Environments
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Smoking and Tobacco Use: Data and Statistics. Updated February 28, 2019.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Health Effects of Cigarette Smoking. Updated January 17, 2018.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Smoking and Tobacco Use: Fast Facts. Updated November 15, 2019.
Xu X, Bishop EE, Kennedy SM, Simpson SA, Pechacek TF. Annual healthcare spending attributable to cigarette smoking: an update. Am J Prev Med. 2015;48(3):326-33. doi:10.1016/j.amepre.2014.10.012
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Economic Trends in Tobacco. Updated July 23, 2019.
U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Labeling and Warning Statements for Tobacco Products. Updated December 2, 2019.
American Cancer Society. Health Risks of Smoking Tobacco. Updated November 15, 2018.
American Lung Association. What's in a cigarette? Updated August 20, 2019.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Surgeon General’s Reports – Smoking & Tobacco Use. Updated December 14, 2017.

Norma Chew is a retired registered nurse who has been a freelance writer since 1978. Chew's articles have appeared in the "Journal of the Association of Operating Room Nurses" (AORN), "Point of View Magazine" and "Today's OR Nurse." Chew has a master's degree in health care administration from Nova Southeastern University.

Smoking ban: Why are young people still taking up smoking?

Published 2 days ago

The government is planning one of the toughest smoking laws in the world, which would effectively ban it .

Smoking has been on the decline for two decades. In fact, more young people now vape than smoke tobacco.

But one recent estimates suggests that about 350 young people still take up smoking each day in the UK.

Among 15-year-olds, nearly one in 10 say they sometimes smoke.

So why does this deadly habit still hold appeal?

'You can supplement with a vape and puff constantly'

Louis, 22, started smoking aged 19 while at university. "I thought I might as well give it a try," he says.

The student from Barnstaple, Devon, is among the 11.6% of people aged 18-24 in the UK who smoke and says he mostly does it "on nights out drinking outside pubs".

What is the smoking ban and how will it work?

But his first cigarette was not his first taste of nicotine. He was already hooked on vapes.

He thinks lots of people his age are drawn to smoking by vaping, even though they were designed to help smokers quit.

He says having both options made it more "convenient" to get a nicotine fix.

"Because cigs are expensive you can supplement with a vape and puff on that constantly."

There is, however, no strong evidence that vapes lead to smoking.

At least one study suggests vapers may be more likely to become smokers. But we don't know that there is a direct link from one to the other, says Dr Sarah Jackson, from University College London's Alcohol and Tobacco Research Group.

"It may be these people have a sort of propensity for nicotine use or risk-taking behaviour, so someone who tries vaping is also more likely to try smoking," she says.

Dr Jackson's recent research suggested there may have been a slight rise in young people taking up smoking during the pandemic, but she says rates are likely to be in decline again.

But "we can't ever become complacent with smoking", she adds.

One of her big concerns is that negative publicity about vaping may be putting smokers off using them as a quitting tool.

House parties

Eleanor, a 23-year old graduate from Widnes, Cheshire, says she is addicted to nicotine - first a smoker, now a vaper too.

Peering over at a stash of nicotine products on her windowsill, she says: "This is disgusting. When I got paid last month… I bought a bag of tobacco and all my skins and filters, I bought a vape and I bought a pack of cigs."

Hers is a familiar tale. Aged 15, she was introduced to smoking at house parties.

And when she later left home to study, it became a regular vice.

"It just sort of went hand in hand with being at uni in Manchester," she says.

Smoking was a big part of Eleanor's university social life. Outdoor areas at house parties were always "way better" than inside, as her smoker friends would all spend the evening there, she says.

But during her university years, nicotine vapes became the big new thing, which she joined in with.

Rather than help her quit smoking, it had the opposite effect, she says.

"I think as a result of vaping more, I became more addicted to nicotine. And I then started to smoke more as well… but I wouldn't mind what form it came in. I would vape, smoke cigs, rollies, snuffs even."

Eleanor said the government's plan to effectively ban smoking was "hypocritical". She said excessive drinking, also a major cause of hospital admissions, seemed to be "acceptable".

Louis says smoking is also a central part of his social gatherings.

"You want to see for yourself what's going on. You get fear of missing out on a conversation."

And he describes a type of "camaraderie" among smokers gathering outside pubs and clubs

"You go outside for a breather and a smoke and there are other people outside and you instantly make a connection, it's actually a conversation starter."

Peer pressure

Jo, a 22-year-old smoker from Sheffield says "peer pressure" was a factor.

Jo, who uses the pronoun "they" says: "Everyone I know smokes basically... I'll go to meet with friends, they'll be smoking."

They think lots of young people feel "social pressure" when cigarettes are handed out.

"They'll push a bit, they're like, oh, go on. You'll enjoy it."

Jo says the planned ban was "definitely the right direction" but felt it would lead to an expansion of the black market.

"Because it's so easy to get hold of them. The trade is so big that it won't stop people".

More than half of smokers think vaping is just as harmful, study suggests
More young people may have started smoking since pandemic, academic says

Jo also believes smoking is sometimes a "backlash against vaping", by people concerned with their image.

"It's like this new modern, obnoxious thing… It's cool or retro.

"Because everyone smoked back in the 70s and people look back to those idols. I've got a great classic picture of David Bowie with a cigarette. I think people look back at that and think, oh, yeah, that was cool."

Louis agrees that it's partly an "image thing".

"I think that's why me and my friends do it - it goes hand in hand with it - sex, drugs and rock and roll type thing. You see the most famous musicians of old with cigarettes hanging out of their mouth."

There is strong evidence the inclusion of smoking in films, on TV and in music videos is a risk-factor in young people taking up the habit. More recently, the depiction of smoking on social media has also been linked with uptake.

But while the rich and famous may have some influence, it's those closer to home who undoubtedly make the biggest impression.

Children whose parents smoke are up to four times more likely to take up smoking.

Ryan, 22, from Cumbria, has smoked since he was 13. He sometimes now vapes to top up nicotine hits from cigarettes.

"Everyone around me did it. The old lad did it, my nana did it, my grandad did it, all my mates did it and all their older brothers and sisters always did it.

"My grandfather would light his new fag with the dying embers of his last fag".

Ryan thinks he would have been "less inclined" to smoke without this influence.

But he said he and his friends also did it for fun.

"Coming from Cumbria, it's such a poor area, there was nothing to do. It was kind of something to cure the boredom, it was exciting... it was worth taking the risk for a bit of excitement and something to do."

Ryan, a member of the Conservative party, thinks plans to ban smoking are unnecessary, due to the decline in rates. He thinks it would "revitalise" young people's desire to smoke and make it more "exciting".

Dr Jackson disagrees.

"There's a risk that if you take your foot off the gas, then people forget about just how bad smoking is for you."

Smoking was "uniquely harmful", she says. And she thinks without more government action, the decline in smoking may stall.

What about the health risks?

No safe level of smoking, study finds

Smokers past and present 'live in more pain'
Boys who smoke could pass on damaged genes - study

Despite how harmful smoking is, Dr Jackson believes "young people tend to be more likely to discount the health risks as being something that is not going to affect them anytime soon".

Eleanor said eventually she wants to give up smoking in case it affects her fertility.

Also, she says, because it is "embarrassing to be addicted to something".

But she's not worried about illnesses such as cancer. "That's never occurred to me or anyone that I am friends with.

"It's weird cause obviously we're also the generation that's obsessed with the gym... though I think that's about vanity."

Jo said they were not worried about health when they began smoking, even though they have family members who have died as a result of smoking.

"I feel like my generation or people my age are very much in the moment.

"I have friends and I hear them coughing. You can hear their lungs deteriorating already and they're my age, but it's not something you think about when you're 18, 19."

"I know about the health risks," says Louis. "The risk of cancer, emphysema, COPD, but obviously I think if I do it now while I'm young and get it out of the way it won't be that bad.

"I think I'll give up eventually".

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Should smoking in outside public spaces be banned? Yes

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Peer review
George Thomson , senior research fellow 1 ,
Nick Wilson , senior lecturer 1 ,
Richard Edwards , associate professor 1 ,
Alistair Woodward , professor 2
1 University of Otago, Wellington, Box 7343, Wellington, New Zealand
2 University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand
Correspondence to: G Thompson george.thomson{at}otago.ac.nz

After success in stopping smoking in public buildings, campaigns are turning outdoors. George Thomson and colleagues argue that a ban will help to stop children becoming smokers but Simon Chapman (doi: 10.1136/bmj.a2804 ) believes that it infringes personal freedom

Legislation to ban smoking indoors in public places is now commonplace, driven mainly by the need to protect non-smokers from exposure to secondhand smoke. A new domain for tobacco control policy is outdoor settings, where secondhand smoke is usually less of a problem. However, the ethical justification for outdoor smoking bans is compelling and is supported by international law. The central argument is that outdoor bans will reduce smoking being modelled to children as normal behaviour and thus cut the uptake of smoking. Outdoor smoke-free policies may in some circumstances (such as crowded locations like sports stadiums) reduce the health effects of secondhand smoke 1 ; will reduce fires and litter 2 ; and are likely to help smokers’ attempts at quitting.

Need to reduce modelling

There is no simple answer to the question of what causes children to take up smoking. 3 4 We know, however, that children tend to copy what they observe and are influenced by the normality and extent of smoking around them. 5 6 7 Many smokers recognise that their smoking affects children’s behaviour. 8

The primary strategy for tobacco control is reducing the prevalence of smoking, and such reduction will in itself mean that smoking is less visible in society. But the modelling of smoking can also be reduced by policies to restrict smoking in the presence of children. The entrenched nature of tobacco use in most societies, and its highly addictive qualities, require that such policies are far reaching. Smoking bans in many outdoor public areas are therefore an important additional approach to tobacco control.

The need for outdoor smoking restrictions is increasingly recognised. Finland, five Canadian provinces, two US states, and New Zealand use law to require smoke-free school grounds. Other jurisdictions (such as Australian states) use administrative policies. California has banned smoking within 25 feet (7.6 metres) of outdoor playgrounds. United Kingdom, Scottish, Australian, and New Zealand authorities have been explicit about the need to reduce the modelling of smoking to children as a justification for this type of outdoor smoking restrictions. 9 10 11 12 Policies encouraging or requiring other outdoor smoke-free areas have been introduced in the past 10 years in North America, Australasia, Hong Kong, Singapore, and elsewhere. 13 Reducing the modelling of smoking to children has often been given as a justification for introducing these restrictions.

Are outdoor smoke-free policies practical?

How best to reduce the visibility of smoking? Media campaigns can promote not smoking in the presence of children as a social norm. 14 Legislation and other uses of law can expand smoke-free policies to ensure the inclusion of all public areas where children predominate. These areas include schools, parks and playgrounds, swimming pool complexes, sports grounds, and parts of beaches. The success of outdoor bans depends on the size of the areas covered, the ways the policy is communicated (for example, signage), and the extent of public support. 15

Reports from Britain, New Zealand, and parts of Australia and the United States indicate majority support for restricting or banning smoking in outdoor areas where there are children. 15 16 17 18 19 20 We are aware of no evidence that outdoor smoke-free policies have resulted in a public backlash against other advances in tobacco control.

Ethical and international treaty considerations

Children are a highly vulnerable population, susceptible to the influences of adult behaviours. Protection from addiction can be considered to enhance overall freedom, given that most smokers regret ever starting. 21

We may not yet be certain that outdoor smoke-free areas reduce smoking uptake; the necessary studies have not been carried out. However, where there is uncertainty in policy making, any assessment of the balance of benefit and harm should put the protection of children first. 22 This is because of the extent and severity of the hazard that taking up smoking poses to children and the theoretical and empirical evidence for a role modelling effect on smoking uptake. The principle of giving primacy to the protection of children is also underpinned by international treaty obligations. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child requires that in making policy, children’s rights must be put first, and governments “shall undertake all appropriate legislative, administrative, and other measures for the implementation of the rights.” 23

Adverse effects from outdoor smoke-free areas are largely restricted to the possible loss of amenities for some smokers.

We argue that society has an ethical duty to minimise the risk of children becoming nicotine dependent smokers. A reasonable step is banning smoking in selected outdoor areas frequented by children. Children need smoke-free outdoor places now, to help normalise a smoke-free society.

Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a2806

Competing interests: All authors have done contract work for health non-governmental organisations, the New Zealand Ministry of Health, or WHO on tobacco control research.

↵ Repace J. Benefits of smoke-free regulations in outdoor settings : beaches, golf courses, parks, patios, and in motor vehicles. William Mitchell Law 2008 ; 34 : 1621 -38. OpenUrl
↵ Mackay J, Erikson M, Shafet O. The tobacco atlas . Atlanta: American Cancer Society, 2006 .
↵ Milton B, Cook PA, Dugdill L, Porcellato L, Springett J, Woods SE. Why do primary school children smoke? A longitudinal analysis of predictors of smoking uptake during pre-adolescence. Public Health 2004 ; 118 : 247 -55. OpenUrl CrossRef PubMed Web of Science
↵ Stewart-Knox BJ, Sittlington J, Rugkasa J, Harrisson S, Treacy M, Abaunza PS. Smoking and peer groups: results from a longitudinal qualitative study of young people in Northern Ireland. Br J Soc Psychol 2005 ; 44 : 397 -414. OpenUrl CrossRef PubMed Web of Science
↵ Kobus K. Peers and adolescent smoking. Addiction 2003 ; 98 (suppl 1): 37 -55. OpenUrl CrossRef PubMed Web of Science
↵ Tyas SL, Pederson LL. Psychosocial factors related to adolescent smoking: a critical review of the literature. Tob Control 1998 ; 7 : 409 -20. OpenUrl Abstract / FREE Full Text
↵ Wakefield M, Chaloupka F, Kaufman N, Orleans C, Barker D, Ruel E. Effect of restrictions on smoking at home, at school, and in public places on teenage smoking: cross sectional study. BMJ 2000 ; 321 : 333 -7. OpenUrl Abstract / FREE Full Text
↵ McCaul KD, Hockemeyer JR, Johnson RJ, Zetocha K, Quinlan K, Glasgow RE. Motivation to quit using cigarettes: a review. Addict Behav 2006 ; 31 : 42 -56. OpenUrl CrossRef PubMed Web of Science
↵ Department for Education. Drug prevention and schools: annex 8—sample smoking policies in schools . London: Department for Children, Schools and Families, 1995 .
↵ Griffiths J. Smoke-free Scotland: guidance on smoking policies for the NHS, local authorities and care service providers . Edinburgh: Scottish Executive and Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, 2005 .
↵ National Childcare Accreditation Council. Smoke free environment policy . Sydney: NCAC, 2006 .
↵ Smoke-free environments amendment act . Wellington: New Zealand Government, 2003 .
↵ Wilson N, Thomson G, Edwards R. Lessons from Hong Kong and other countries for outdoor smokefree areas in New Zealand? N Z Med J 2007 ; 120 : U2624 . OpenUrl PubMed
↵ Levy DT, Romano E, Mumford EA. Recent trends in home and work smoking bans. Tob Control 2004 ; 13 : 258 -63. OpenUrl Abstract / FREE Full Text
↵ Klein EG, Forster JL, McFadden B, Outley CW. Minnesota tobacco-free park policies: attitudes of the general public and park officials. Nicotine Tob Res 2007 ; 9 (suppl 1): S49 -55. OpenUrl Abstract
↵ Alesci NL, Forster JL, Blaine T. Smoking visibility, perceived acceptability, and frequency in various locations among youth and adults. Prev Med 2003 ; 36 : 272 -81. OpenUrl CrossRef PubMed Web of Science
↵ Gilpin EA, Lee L, Pierce JP, Tang H, Lloyd J. Support for protection from secondhand smoke: California 2002. Tob Control 2004 ; 13 : 96 . OpenUrl FREE Full Text
↵ Health Sponsorship Council. Acceptability of smoking in outdoor public places . Wellington: Health Sponsorship Council, 2008 .
↵ Populus. BBC Daily Politics Show poll [smoking related questions] . London: BBC, 2007 .
↵ Quit Victoria. Quit gets behind smokefree playgrounds . Melbourne: Quit Victoria, 2007 .
↵ Fong GT, Hammond D, Laux FL, Zanna MP, Cummings KM, Borland R, et al. The near-universal experience of regret among smokers in four countries: findings from the International Tobacco Control policy evaluation survey. Nicotine Tob Res 2004 ;6 (suppl 3):S341-51.
↵ Nuffield Council on Bioethics. Public health: ethical issues . London: NCB, 2007 .
↵ United Nations Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights. Convention on the rights of the child . Geneva: UN, 1990 .

Persuasive Speech: Banning Smoking In Public Areas

Assalamualaikum and a very good evening everyone. First of all I would like to introduce myself, my name is Nurul Nadhiah binti Mohamed Salehuddin. As you can see on the slide, the topic I would like to persuade to everyone is should we banned smoking in the public area entirely? Today, we tend to ignore the dangerous of smoking that we breathe in which there a lot of harmful substance will effect to our health and life. Government need to take serious attention to this issue because there are many cases happen which shows around 435000 people dead from use of tobacco. Even though we cannot eliminate this problem, but all we can do is to reduce the risk. For most of us, we will agree that we absolutely need to ban smoking in the public. There are so many reason that relay on this issue but I would highlight several reason such as the fume from a cigarette can affect the smoker’s health, other people and the effect to society and economies. Our health is an asset because it’s so valuable and u cannot exchange it with something else. So, we should appreciate it. I would like to …show more content…

As we know not just smokers in the public area, it also include children, pregnant women, nonsmoker and old people. If smoking do not be ban in public area, our children will expose with bad habit model and may influence them to try it as they would think it is cool. Other than that, second hand smoke which also known as nonsmoker or passive smoker that caused by Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS). They have chance of lung cancer and heart diseases which are increased from 16%-19% and 23%-35% respectively. In addition, for pregnant women will effect to their unborn babies such as it may cause underweight, premature and die from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS or crib death). This is because of the carbon monoxide affecting the unborn babies to develop as it still weak. The mother also may having chance of

Smoking While Pregnant Research Paper

Smoking While Pregnant Parents always want what is best for their children and it starts even before the child is born. To ensure your child’s safety it begins when a woman becomes pregnant. To enable this protection and ensure a healthy pregnancy, smoking cigarettes are very dangerous for both the pregnant mother and the unborn child. According to the Surgeon General’s Warnings printed on cigarette packaging it states: “Smoking by pregnant women may result in fetal injury, premature birth, and low birth weight” these statements are only a beginning to all the dangers of smoking while pregnant.

Persuasive Speech: Lowering Drinking Age

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Persuasive Essay On Vaping

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Persuasive Speech On Legalizing Marijuana

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Why E-Cigarettes Should Be Banned

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Smoking Weed Persuasive Speech

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Persuasive Speech On Smoking

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Argumentative Essay On Why Tobacco Should Be Banned

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Smoking Informative Speech

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Persuasive Speech On Smoking In Public Places

General Purpose: to persuade Specific Purpose: to persuade the audience of the importance of banning smoking in public places Thesis: Smoking should be banned in public places because it is harmful to non-smokers who visit public places. I. Introduction A. Attention-getter: How many of you been around people who are smoking in public places? Probably, most of us have at least noticed people smoking in CMU campus even it is a non-smoking campus. Secondhand smoke is really harmful to anyone who inhales it in.

Persuasive Speech: The Dangers Of Cigarette Smoking

As per the latest study conducted by the World Health Organization, one billion people smoke worldwide, which constitute about 20% of the entire world population. Cigarette smoking has numerous health hazards however, lung cancer is the most known to generations. Smoking, at the same time, is also responsible for cardiovascular disease and heart stroke. But accelerated aging continues to remain the most ignored and standard side effect of smoking.

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Smoking should be banned in public places for many reason many people do not like the smell of smoke nor want the smell of the smoke to get into their clothes. Smoking also affects the environment. For an example if someone is outside smoking outside near a restaurant and a family wants to sit outside and eat it can affect the family that is eating also if they have kids with them. Usually people look for places where no smokers are so thats why smoking should be banned from all public places. Some people also would not like for there kids to get influenced by others people smoking or to imitate it.

Cause And Effect Essay About Smoking

Smoking has become a social habit nowadays. When people around are smoking, the person practically feel like he/she should be doing the same. And this is increasing day by day in our country. Smoking tribulates almost every organ of the body. It is the leading cause of more than 443,00 deaths each year.

More about Persuasive Speech: Banning Smoking In Public Areas

Does Compelling Graphic Warnings on Cigarettes Violate Freedom of Speech?

Banning cigarette advertisements outright would violate freedom of speech. But maybe there is a workaround called compelled speech? Can the government compel graphic package warnings with the same (subliminal) effect as an outright ban? Recently, the Fifth Circuit provided the answer.

Cigarette Warnings – Info-creep to package takeover

In 1984, Congress enacted the Comprehensive Smoking Education Act, requiring labeling stating one of four “Surgeon General Warnings:

Smoking Causes Lung Cancer, Heart Disease, Emphysema And May Complicate Pregnancy.
Quitting Smoking Now Greatly Reduces Serious Risks to Your Health.
Smoking By Pregnant Women May Result in Fetal Injury, Premature Birth, and Low Birth Weight.
Cigarette Smoke Contains Carbon Monoxide

But it became clear that these warnings weren’t curbing tobacco use – especially by adolescents. Various initiatives (such as restricting flavored and menthol-containing cigarettes) were instituted, but even those weren’t enough to accomplish Congress’s stated goal of “restrict[ing] advertising and marketing of tobacco products….”

Hence, in 2009, Congress passed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (“TCA” or “Act”), augmenting previous directives by selecting nine specific package warnings that would rotate quarterly.

WARNING: Cigarettes are addictive.
WARNING: Tobacco smoke can harm your children
WARNING: Cigarettes cause fatal lung disease.
WARNING: Cigarettes cause cancer.
WARNING: Cigarettes cause strokes and heart disease.
WARNING: Smoking during pregnancy can harm your baby.
WARNING: Smoking can kill you.
WARNING: Tobacco smoke causes fatal lung disease in nonsmokers.
WARNING: Quitting smoking now greatly reduces serious risks to your health.

But increasing text and font size wasn’t enough—Congress also wanted graphic images to accompany these textual warnings. The powerful graphic warnings were also mandated to occupy half the visual real estate of each cigarette package's front and back panels and 20% of advertising material.

“Modernizing the ubiquitous text of the Surgeon General’s current warnings, the Act requires cigarette packages to include ‘color graphics depicting the negative health consequences of smoking to accompany the [updated] label statements.’ …”

In 2012, the Cigarette companies sued, claiming the TCA was unconstitutional. The 6 th Circuit ruled against them, holding the Act did not impinge on freedom of speech. The Supreme Court declined to hear their appeal.

However, in a separate case, the FDA was challenged regarding how the Rule would be implemented. This time, they lost, although the ruling only applied to the specific proposed warnings and graphics, not the constitutionality of the underlying TCA. In 2013, the FDA promised to promulgate new rules and graphic warnings – a promise that stood empty for almost a decade.

By 2016, the FDA, failing to issue the promised new rules, was sued by the American Cancer Society, and other groups sued to force compliance with the TCA. In 2018, Massachusetts’s District Court’s Judge Indira Talwani gave the FDA until March 2020 to promulgate final rules and new warnings. The new rules, delayed by COVID-19, didn’t emerge until 2021.

Within a month, the tobacco companies sued, decrying the warnings as “unprecedented” and “precisely the type of compelled speech that the First Amendment prohibits” and alleging that each warning “misrepresent[s] or exaggerate[s] the potential effects of smoking.”

In December of 2022, a Texas court agreed. The decision was appealed to the traditionally arch-conservative 5 th Circuit, which, in late March, rendered its decision. [1]

The Tobacco Companies Claim a Word is Worth a Thousand Pictures

Among the cigarette companies’ objections was that graphic depictions couldn’t accurately represent what text can. The 5 th Circuit didn’t buy that. A second argument the companies claimed was that the visceral or emotional response evoked by the images trespassed on their First Amendment rights. The Court didn’t buy that either. The Court was operating on the Zauderer standard, which focuses on preventing consumer deception and requires that only facts, not opinions, be put before the consumer. In ruling that the graphics and the warnings were both accurate and informative, i.e., they were facts and not opinions, the Court decided that:

“Graphic and textual warnings that convey factual information about the health risks of tobacco use are reasonably related to the purpose of preventing consumer deception.… That deception…, arose inherently from the past decades of false advertising and misleading research by the companies that were proclaiming that tobacco had no health risks and was not addictive.”

The Court also determined that while facts can “disconcert, displease, provoke an emotional response, spark controversy, and even overwhelm reason, … that does not magically turn such facts into opinions.” Because they were ‘purely factual and uncontroversial’ information” even if the images “could be misinterpreted by consumers” or were “primarily intended to evoke an emotional response, or, at most, shock the viewer into retaining the information in the text warning,” the primary purpose was to inform consumers.

“Emotional response to a statement is irrelevant to its truth; the emotional impact of the Warnings does not abrogate their factual nature.”

As for the package’s “real estate” takeover, the Court found the number and size of required warnings and graphics weren’t unduly burdensome.

Holding that the warnings are both factual and uncontroversial, the 5th Circuit overruled the lower district court and determined the Act to be constitutional, but the FDA didn’t get an outright win. The Court sent the matter back to determine if the FDA complied with all the procedural rule-making requirements. Likely, they will succeed.

Hopefully, once instituted, these warnings will reduce cigarette consumption and prove a public health boon.

Warning: Beyond the Lines

The Court’s language -- which might be considered dicta (the incidental expression of opinion, not essential to the decision nor setting a precedent), may bode poorly for anti-science groups, such as the anti-vax contingent. The Court goes to great lengths to differentiate between scientific fact, information, and opinion, distinguishing scientific facts from “truth.” It is not inconceivable, for example, that this case might be used to compel social media to include a warning regarding the lack of scientific veracity of some anti-vax claims.

In determining that “factual information” requires it to be falsifiable material and inferences fairly drawn from it, rather than one’s non-falsifiable interpretations, the Court rejects non-falsifiable “opinions,” e.g., harms attributed to vaccines, such as contemporaneous implantation of tracking devices, causing infertility, and the like.

While acknowledging that “in some instances, compulsion to speak may be as violative of the First Amendment as prohibitions on speech” and that no State may “prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein,” they held that this sentiment does not apply to scientific facts

To pass muster, a warning, even accompanied by a graphic, must comply with the Zauderer requirements. In addition to furthering a governmental interest and not being unduly burdensome, the warnings must be:

statements composed of only information supported by facts,
conclusions driven by those facts
not akin to unfalsifiable statements of opinion.

“Consequences supported by scientific findings , even if exaggerated or non-modal, are still, by definition, factual…”

Information contained in a medical textbook, the court notes, would be considered factual. A science-based position, even one aligned with a particular political party, won’t shield it if it is not factual, holds the Court, rejecting the plaintiff's claim that “the Rule is unlawful because it conveys an ideological or provocative message. “

The Court concludes: “A fact does not become “value-laden” merely because the fact drives a reaction. But even if it did, ideological baggage has no relevance to the first Zauderer prong. Any number of factual messages are, of course, ideological… In other words, that the speaker does not like the message does not make it controversial; there must be something more.”

The Fifth Circuit's ruling, affirms the constitutionality of government action compelling graphic warnings on cigarette packages, dismisses claims of freedom of speech violations, and endorses government speech as a public health tool. By adhering to the Zauderer standard, which prioritizes factual scientific fact over opinion, the decision sets a precedent for addressing other public health challenges and combating public health misinformation that might see far-reaching uses.

[1] For now, the US falls short of its international peers in warning prowess, currently ranking last in the world in the size of warnings, and well behind in implementing graphic warnings , now required by 138 countries and territories . Cigarette-related illness costs Americans some 300 billion dollars a year -- which continues while the tobacco companies and the FDA duke it out, as the tortured history of the TCA reveals.

Sources: Defending Graphic Warnings on Cigarette Packs and Ads American Cancer Society

Ruling of the 5 th Circuit Court of Appeals

View the discussion thread.

By Barbara Pfeffer Billauer JD MA (Occ. Health) PhD

Dr. Billauer, JD MA (Occ. Health) Ph.D. is Professor of Law and Bioethics in the International Program in Bioethics of the University of Porto and Research Professor of Scientific Statecraft at the Institute of World Politics in Washington DC.

Latest from Barbara Pfeffer Billauer JD MA (Occ. Health) PhD :

How bad is vaping and should it be banned?

Professor at the National Drug Research Institute (Melbourne), Curtin University

PhD Candidate (Psychiatry) & Research Assistant, University of Newcastle

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Nicole Lee works as a consultant in the health sector and a psychologist in private practice. She has previously received funding by Australian and state governments, NHMRC and other bodies for evaluation and research into alcohol and other drug prevention and treatment.

Brigid Clancy is an Associate at 360Edge, a drug and alcohol consultancy company.

University of Newcastle and Curtin University provide funding as members of The Conversation AU.

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Vaping regularly makes headlines, with some campaigning to make e-cigarettes more available to help smokers quit, while others are keen to see vaping products banned, citing dangers, especially for teens.

So just how dangerous is it? We have undertaken an evidence check of vaping research . This included more than 100 sources on tobacco harm reduction, vaping prevalence and health effects, and what other countries are doing in response. Here’s what we found.

How does vaping compare to smoking?

Smoking is harmful. It’s the leading preventable cause of death in Australia. It causes 13% of all deaths , including from lung, mouth, throat and bladder cancer, emphysema, heart attack and stroke, to name just a few. People who smoke regularly and don’t quit lose about ten years of life compared with non-smokers.

Nicotine, a mild stimulant, is the active ingredient in both cigarettes and nicotine vaping products. It’s addictive but isn’t the cause of cancer or the other diseases related to smoking.

Ideally, people wouldn’t be addicted to nicotine, but having a safe supply without the deadly chemicals, for instance by using nicotine patches or gum, is safer than smoking. Making these other sources available is known as “harm reduction”.

Vaping is not risk-free, but several detailed reviews of the evidence plus a consensus of experts have all estimated it’s at least 95% safer to vape nicotine than to smoke tobacco. The risk of cancer from vaping, for example, has been estimated at less than 1%.

These reviews looked at the known dangerous chemicals in cigarettes, and found there were very few and in very small quantities in nicotine vapes. So the argument that we won’t see major health effects for a few more decades is causing more alarm than is necessary.

Is ‘everyone’ vaping these days?

Some are concerned about the use of vaping products by teens, but currently available statistics show very few teens vape regularly. Depending on the study, between 9.6% and 32% of 14-17-year-olds have tried vaping at some point in their lives.

But less than 2% of 14-17-year-olds say they have used vapes in the past year. This number doubled between 2016 and 2019, but is still much lower than the rates of teen smoking (3.2%) and teen alcohol use (32%).

It’s the same pattern we see with drugs other than alcohol: a proportion of people try them but only a very small proportion of those go on to use regularly or for a long time. Nearly 60% of people who try vaping only use once or twice .

Smoking rates in Australia have declined from 24% in 1991 to 11% in 2019 because we have introduced a number of very successful measures such as restricting sales and where people can smoke, putting up prices, introducing plain packaging, and improving education and access to treatment programs.

But it’s getting harder to encourage the remaining smokers to quit with the methods that have worked in the past. Those still smoking tend to be older , more socially disadvantaged , or have mental health problems.

Read more: My teen's vaping. What should I say? 3 expert tips on how to approach 'the talk'

Should we ban vapes?

So we have a bit of a dilemma. Vaping is much safer than smoking, so it would be helpful for adults to have access to it as an alternative to cigarettes. That means we need to make them more available and accessible.

But ideally we don’t want teens who don’t already smoke to start regular vaping. This has led some to call for a “ crackdown ” on vaping.

But we know from a long history of drug prohibition - like alcohol prohibition in the 1920s - that banning or restricting vaping could actually do more harm than good.

Banning drugs doesn’t stop people using them - more than 43% of Australians have tried an illicit drug at least once. And it has very little impact on the availability of drugs.

But prohibition does have a number of unintended consequences, including driving drugs underground and creating a black market or increasing harms as people switch to other drugs, which are often more dangerous.

The black market makes drugs more dangerous because there is no way to control quality. And it makes it easier, not harder, for teens to access them, because there are no restrictions on who can sell or buy them.

Read more: Learning about the health risks of vaping can encourage young vapers to rethink their habit

Are our current laws working?

In 2021, Australia made it illegal to possess and use nicotine vaping products without a prescription. We are the only country in the world to take this path.

The problem is even after more than a year of this law, only 8.6% of people vaping nicotine have a prescription, meaning more than 90% buy them illegally.

Anecdotal reports even suggest an increase in popularity of vaping among teens since these laws were introduced. At best, they are not helping.

It may seem counterintuitive, but the way to reduce the black market is to make quality-controlled vapes and liquids more widely available, but restricted to adults. If people could access vaping products legally they wouldn’t buy them on the black market and the black market would decline.

We also know from many studies on drug education in schools that when kids get accurate, non-sensationalised information about drugs they tend to make healthier decisions. Sensationalised information can have the opposite effect and increase interest in drugs . So better education in schools and for parents and teachers is also needed, so they know how to talk to kids about vaping and what to do if they know someone is vaping.

What have other countries done?

Other countries allow vapes to be legally sold without a prescription, but impose strict quality controls and do not allow the sale of products to people under a minimum age. This is similar to our regulation of cigarettes and alcohol.

The United Kingdom has minimum standards on manufacturing, as well as restrictions on purchase age and where people can vape.

Aotearoa New Zealand introduced a unique plan to reduce smoking rates by imposing a lifetime ban on buying cigarettes. Anyone born after January 1 2009 will never be able to buy cigarettes, so the minimum age you can legally smoke keeps increasing. At the same time, NZ increased access to vaping products under strict regulations on manufacture, purchase and use.

As of late last year, all US states require sellers to have a retail licence, and sales to people under 21 are banned. There are also restrictions on where people can vape.

A recent study modelled the impact of increasing access to nicotine vaping products in Australia. It found it’s likely there would be significant public health benefits by relaxing the current restrictive policies and increasing access to nicotine vaping products for adults.

The question is not whether we should discourage teens from using vaping products or whether we should allow wider accessibility to vaping products for adults as an alternative to smoking. The answer to both those questions is yes.

The key question is how do we do both effectively without one policy jeopardising the outcomes of the other?

If we took a pragmatic harm-reduction approach, as other countries have done, we could use our very successful model of regulation of tobacco products as a template to achieve both outcomes.

Read more: It's safest to avoid e-cigarettes altogether – unless vaping is helping you quit smoking

Tobacco control

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The cigarette is the deadliest artefact in the history of human civilisation. Most of the richer countries of the globe, however, are making progress in reducing both smoking rates and overall consumption. Many different methods have been proposed to steepen this downward slope, including increased taxation, bans on advertising, promotion of cessation, and expansion of smoke-free spaces. One option that deserves more attention is the enactment of local or national bans on the sale of cigarettes. There are precedents: 15 US states enacted bans on the sale of cigarettes from 1890 to 1927, for instance, and such laws are still fully within the power of local communities and state governments. Apart from reducing human suffering, abolishing the sale of cigarettes would result in savings in the realm of healthcare costs, increased labour productivity, lessened harms from fires, reduced consumption of scarce physical resources, and a smaller global carbon footprint. Abolition would also put a halt to one of the principal sources of corruption in modern civilisation, and would effectively eliminate one of the historical forces behind global warming denial and environmental obfuscation. The primary reason for abolition, however, is that smokers themselves dislike the fact they smoke. Smoking is not a recreational drug, and abolishing cigarettes would therefore enlarge rather than restrict human liberties. Abolition would also help cigarette makers fulfil their repeated promises to ‘cease production’ if cigarettes were ever found to be causing harm.

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This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial License, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non commercial and is otherwise in compliance with the license. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ and http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/legalcode

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Six reasons to ban

The cigarette is the deadliest object in the history of human civilisation. Cigarettes kill about 6 million people every year, a number that will grow before it shrinks. Smoking in the twentieth century killed only 100 million people, whereas a billion could perish in our century unless we reverse course. 1 Even if present rates of consumption drop steadily to zero by 2100, we will still have about 300 million tobacco deaths this century.

The cigarette is also a defective product, meaning not just dangerous but unreasonably dangerous, killing half its long-term users. And addictive by design. It is fully within the power of the Food and Drug Administration in the US, for instance, to require that the nicotine in cigarettes be reduced to subcompensable, subaddictive levels. 2 , 3 This is not hard from a manufacturing point of view: the nicotine alkaloid is water soluble, and denicotinised cigarettes were already being made in the 19th century. 4 Philip Morris in the 1980s set up an entire factory to make its Next brand cigarettes, using supercritical fluid extraction techniques to achieve a 97% reduction in nicotine content, which is what would be required for a 0.1% nicotine cigarette, down from present values of about 2%. 5 Keep in mind that we're talking about nicotine content in the rod as opposed to deliveries measured by the ‘FTC method’, which cannot capture how people actually smoke. 5

Cigarettes are also defective because they have been engineered to produce an inhalable smoke. Tobacco smoke was rarely inhaled prior to the nineteenth century; it was too harsh, too alkaline. Smoke first became inhalable with the invention of flue curing , a technique by which the tobacco leaf is heated during fermentation, preserving the sugars naturally present in the unprocessed leaf. Sugars when they burn produce acids, which lower the pH of the resulting smoke, making it less harsh, more inhalable. There is a certain irony here, since these ‘milder’ cigarettes were actually far more deadly, allowing smoke to be drawn deep into the lungs. The world's present epidemic of lung cancer is almost entirely due to the use of low pH flue-cured tobacco in cigarettes, an industry-wide practice that could be reversed at any time. Regulatory agencies should mandate a significant reduction in rod-content nicotine, but they should also require that no cigarette be sold with a smoke pH lower than 8. Those two mandates alone would do more for public health than any previous law in history. 5

Death and product defect are two reasons to abolish the sale of cigarettes, but there are others. A third is the financial burden on public and private treasuries, principally from the costs of treating illnesses due to smoking. Cigarette use also results in financial losses from diminished labor productivity, and in many parts of the world makes the poor even poorer. 6

A fourth reason is that the cigarette industry is a powerful corrupting force in human civilisation. Big tobacco has corrupted science by sponsoring ‘decoy’ or ‘distraction research’, 5 but it has also corrupted popular media, insofar as newspapers and magazines dependent on tobacco advertising for revenues have been reluctant to publish critiques of cigarettes. 7 The industry has corrupted even the information environment of its own workforce, as when Philip Morris paid its insurance provider (CIGNA) to censor the health information sent to corporate employees. 8 Tobacco companies have bullied, corrupted or exploited countless other institutions: the American Medical Association, the American Law Institute, sports organisations, fire-fighting bodies, Hollywood, the US Congress—even the US presidency and US military. President Lyndon Johnson refused to endorse the 1964 Surgeon General's report, for instance, fearing alienation of the tobacco-friendly South. Cigarette makers managed even to thwart the US Navy's efforts to go smoke-free. In 1986, the Navy had announced a goal of creating a smoke-free Navy by the year 2000; tobacco-friendly congressmen were pressured to thwart that plan, and a law was passed requiring that all ships sell cigarettes and allow smoking. The result: American submarines were not smoke-free until 2011. 9

Cigarettes are also, though, a significant cause of harm to the natural environment. Cigarette manufacturing consumes scarce resources in growing, curing, rolling, flavouring, packaging, transport, advertising and legal defence, but also causes harms from massive pesticide use and deforestation. Many Manhattans of savannah woodlands are lost every year to obtain the charcoal used for flue curing. Cigarette manufacturing also produces non-trivial greenhouse gas emissions, principally from the fossil fuels used for curing and transport, fires from careless disposal of butts, and increased medical costs from maladies caused by smoking 5 (China produces 40 percent of the world's cigarettes, for example, and uses mainly coal to cure its tobacco leaf). And cigarette makers have provided substantial funding and institutional support for global climate change deniers, causing further harm. 10 Cigarettes are not sustainable in a world of global warming; indeed they are one of its overlooked and easily preventable causes.

But the sixth and most important reason for abolition is the fact that smokers themselves do not like their habit. This is a key point: smoking is not a recreational drug; most smokers do not like the fact they smoke and wish they could quit. This means that cigarettes are very different from alcohol or even marijuana. Only about 10–15% of people who drink liquor ever become alcoholics, versus addiction rates of 80% or 90% for people who smoke. 11 As an influential Canadian tobacco executive once confessed: smoking is not like drinking, it is rather like being an alcoholic. 12

The spectre of prohibition

An objection commonly raised is: Hasn't prohibition already been tried and failed? Won't this just encourage smuggling, organised crime, and yet another failed war on drugs? That has been the argument of the industry for decades; bans are ridiculed as impractical or tyrannical. (First they come for your cigarettes.…) 13

The freedom objection is weak, however, given how people actually experience addiction. Most smokers ‘enjoy’ smoking only in the sense that it relieves the pains of withdrawal; they need nicotine to feel normal. People who say they enjoy cigarettes are rather rare—so rare that the industry used to call them ‘enjoyers’. 14 Surveys show that most smokers want to quit but cannot; they also regret having started. 15 Tobacco industry executives have long grasped the point: Imperial Tobacco's Robert Bexon in 1984 confided to his Canadian cotobacconists that ‘If our product was not addictive we would not sell a cigarette next week’. 12 American cigarette makers have been quietly celebrating addiction since the 1950s, when one expressed how ‘fortunate for us’ it was that cigarettes ‘are a habit they can't break’. 16

Another objection commonly raised to any call for a ban is that this will encourage smuggling, or even organised crime. But that is rather like blaming theft on fat wallets. Smuggling is already rampant in the cigarette world, as a result of pricing disparities and the tolerance of contraband or even its encouragement by cigarette manufacturers. Luk Joossens and Rob Cunningham have shown how cigarette manufacturers have used smuggling to undermine monopolies or gain entry into new markets or evade taxation. 17 , 18 And demand for contraband should diminish, once the addicted overcome their addiction—a situation very different from prohibition of alcohol, where drinking was a more recreational drug. And of course, even a ban on the sale of cigarettes will not eliminate all smoking—nor should that be our goal, since people should still be free to grow their own for personal use. Possession should not be criminalised; the goal should only be a ban on sales. Enforcement, therefore, should be a trivial matter, as is proper in a liberal society.

Cigarette smoking itself, though, is less an expression of freedom than the robbery of it. And so long as we allow the companies to cast themselves as defenders of liberty, the table is unfairly tilted. We have to recognise that smoking compromises freedom, and that retiring cigarettes would enlarge human liberties.

Of course it could well be that product regulation, combined with taxation, denormalisation, and ‘smoke-free’ legislation, will be enough to dramatically lower or even eliminate cigarette use—over some period of decades. Here, though, I think we fail to realise how much power governments already have to act more decisively. From 1890 to 1927 the sale of cigarettes was banned virtually overnight in 15 different US states; and in Austin v. Tennessee (1900) the US Supreme Court upheld the right of states to enact such bans. 19 Those laws all eventually disappeared from industry pressure and the lure of tax revenues. 20 None was deemed unconstitutional, however, and some localities retained bans into the 1930s, just as some counties still today ban the sale of alcohol. Bhutan in 2004 became the first nation recently to ban the sale of cigarettes, and we may see other countries taking this step, especially once smoking prevalence rates start dropping into single digits.

Helping the industry fulfil its promises

One last rationale for a ban: abolition would fulfil a promise made repeatedly by the industry itself. Time and again, cigarette makers have insisted that if cigarettes were ever found to be causing harm they would stop making them:

In March 1954, George Weissman, head of marketing at Philip Morris, announced that his company would ‘stop business tomorrow’ if ‘we had any thought or knowledge that in any way we were selling a product harmful to consumers’. 21

In 1972, James C Bowling, vice president for public relations at Philip Morris, asserted publicly, and in no uncertain terms, that ‘If our product is harmful…we'll stop making it’. 22

Helmut Wakeham, vice president for research at Philip Morris, in 1976 stated publicly that ‘if the company as a whole believed that cigarettes were really harmful, we would not be in the business. We are a very moralistic company’. 23

RJ Reynolds president Gerald H Long, in a 1986 interview asserted that if he ever ‘saw or thought there were any evidence whatsoever that conclusively proved that, in some way, tobacco was harmful to people, and I believed it in my heart and my soul, then I would get out of the business’. 24

Philip Morris CEO Geoffrey Bible in 1997, when asked (under oath) what he would do with his company if cigarettes were ever found to be causing cancer, said: ‘I'd probably…shut it down instantly to get a better hold on things’. 25 Bible was asked about this in Minnesota v. Philip Morris (2 March 1998) and reaffirmed that if even one person were ever found to have died from smoking he would ‘reassess’ his duties as CEO. 26

The clearest expression of such an opinion, however, was by Lorillard's president, Curtis H Judge, in an April 1984 deposition, where he was asked why he regarded Lorillard's position on smoking and health as important: A: Because if we are marketing a product that we know causes cancer, I'd get out of the business…I wouldn't be associated with marketing a product like that. Q: Why? A: If cigarettes caused cancer, I wouldn't be involved with them…I wouldn't sell a product that caused cancer. Q: …Because you don't want to kill people? … Is that the reason? A: Yes. Q: …If it was proven to you that cigarette smoking caused lung cancer, do you think cigarettes should be marketed? A: No…No one should sell a product that is a proven cause of lung cancer. 27

Note that these are all public assurances , including several made under oath. All follow a script drawn up by the industry's public relations advisors during the earliest stages of the conspiracy: On 14 December 1953, Hill and Knowlton had proposed to RJ Reynolds that the cigarette maker reassure the public that it ‘would never market a product which is in any way harmful’. Reynolds was also advised to make it clear that If the Company felt that its product were now causing cancer or any other disease, it would immediately cease production of it. 28 To this recommendation was added ‘Until such time as these charges or irresponsible statements are ever proven, the Company will continue to produce and market cigarettes’.

What is remarkable is that we never find the companies saying privately that they would stop making cigarettes—with two significant exceptions. In August 1947, in an internal document outlining plans to study ‘vascular and cardiac effects’ of smoking, Philip Morris's director of research, Willard Greenwald, made precisely this claim: ‘We certainly do not want any person to smoke if it is dangerous to his health’. 29 Greenwald had made a similar statement in 1939, reassuring his president, OH Chalkley, that ‘under no circumstances would we want anyone to smoke Philip Morris cigarettes were smoking definitely deleterious to his health’. 30 There is no reason to believe he was lying: he is writing long before Wynder's mouse painting experiments of 1953, and prior even to the epidemiology of 1950. Prior to obtaining proof of harm, Philip Morris seems honestly not to have wanted to sell a deadly product.

Summary points

The cigarette is the deadliest object in the history of human civilisation. It is also a defective product, a financial burden on cash-strapped societies, an important source of political and scientific corruption, and a cause of both global warming and global warming denial.

Tobacco manufacturers have a long history of promising to stop the production of cigarettes, should they ever be proven harmful.

The most important reason to ban the sale of cigarettes, however, is that most smokers do not even like the fact they smoke; cigarettes are not a recreational drug.

It is not in principle difficult to end the sale of cigarettes; most communities–even small towns–could do this virtually overnight. We actually have more power than we realize to put an end this, the world's leading cause of death and disease.

Benowitz NL ,
Henningfield J
Hatsukami DK ,
Perkins KA ,
LeSage MG ,
Peretti-Watel P ,
Constance J ,
Muggli ME ,
Oreskes N ,
Giovino GA ,
Henningfield JE ,
↵ A Study of Cigarette Smokers' Habits and Attitudes in 1970. May 1970. Philip Morris. http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/jyx81a00 (accessed 4 Apr 2012) . pp. 13, 18, 39 .
Hammond D ,
Joossens L ,
Cunningham R
↵ Austin vs. State of Tennessee , Decided Nov. 19. Cases argued and decided in the Supreme Court , Book 45 . Rochester : Lawyers Co-operative Publishing , 1900 : 224 – 43 .
↵ Hill and Knowlton . Suggested approach and comments regarding attacks on use of cigarettes. 1953. Bates 3799, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/tao66b00 (accessed 1 Jun 2012).
Greenwald WF

Competing interests The author has served as an expert witness for plaintiffs in tobacco litigation.

Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

Open Access This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 3.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

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Readers’ Blog

The banning of public smoking

Smoking is a well-documented risk factor for hypertension, lung disease, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes and is a leading cause of chronic disease and death worldwide. Still, people choose to smoke.

Smoking in public places does not only affect the smoker negatively. It also violates a non-smokers’ right to live a healthy lifestyle. People who do not smoke, but are exposed to secondhand smoke (it’s the combination of smoke from the burning end of a cigarette and the smoke breathed out by smokers) experience an increase in their risk of developing heart disease. Adults exposed to secondhand smoke during pregnancy are more likely to have newborns with lower birth weight, increasing the risk of health complications. Infants exposed to secondhand smoke after birth have significantly higher risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Therefore smoking should be banned in all public places.

It is true that smokers have rights to smoke and these rights should not be infringed upon. However, a non-smoker’s right to breathe clean air and maintain a healthy lifestyle without breathing in second hand smoke, should be protected as well. By disallowing smokers from smoking in public, it will cause smokers to smoke less as they will have to wait until they get home to light up a cigarette. This in turn will benefit the smokers who have been trying to quit smoking because it will help them reduce the frequency of smoking and break their addiction to cigarettes. It’ll also discourage non-smokers from starting to smoke at all.

Smoking in public portrays a bad example. Children are easily influenced in their growing stages because they cannot differentiate between right and wrong. Teenagers happen to think that smoking makes a person “cool.” When they see adults doing it on the streets it strengthens their belief in the “coolness” of smoking. If smoking is banned in public areas, it will promote a healthier lifestyle for everyone. By banning smoking in public areas the government may send the message that the government is seriously concerned for the well being of its citizens and that the government discourages people from smoking.

Smokers generally throw their cigarette butts on the ground wherever they are. These butts are detrimental to the environment because they take a long time to decompose. They are harmful to birds and other wildlife which nibble on or even swallow them. Discarded cigarette butts also pollute the marine environment by leaching chemicals such as cadmium, lead and arsenic into the stomachs of fishes and other aquatic creatures . If the smoking ban is enforced, the littering of these buds will no longer be an issue and the environment will be cleaner and healthier for everyone.

Becoming 100 percent smoke-free starts with the political will to make it happen. Only a smoke free legislation that bans smoking in all public places, without exemptions, will fully protect nonsmokers, reduce health inequalities, save money, and improve public health. The banning of public smoking; prohibition of tobacco product promotion; display of warnings on product packaging; and increasing product prices and taxes have reduced the affordability and availability of tobacco products to the general public. There is still a lot more that needs to be done. In particular the Government should focus on measures to shield children from tobacco industry marketing while parents can do much more to protect children from exposure to second-hand smoke. There is also an urgent need for suitable training of health practitioners as it is anticipated that the number of patients motivated to tobacco cessation may increase after Covid-19 pandemic .

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@ addiction2excitement

Happiness is a thing to be practiced, like the violin. I always find that there is a real communication between voice and violin. When you play a violin piece, you are a storyteller, and you're telling a story. I hope I will always have the chance to play the violin. Napoleon Bonaparte said," I love power. But it is as an artist that I love it. I love it as a musician loves his violin, to draw out its sounds and chords and harmonies." After experimenting with violin, I personally feel that although technology has been able to synthesize the sounds of other types of mechanical instruments in the modern world but the complex sound of the violin still cannot be duplicated. (1) Qualification: MBA in Operations Management (2) I am a Government Employee. Currently, I am working at the Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat, Assam (3) I write articles (already published in multiple assamese newspapers, english newspaper the Assam Tribune, Seven Sisters Post,...), compose music...

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Britain is forgetting what it means to be a free country

By downgrading freedom as a value, we’re choosing a false promise of ‘stability’ over dynamism and growth

Helicopter parenting is, just perhaps, falling out of vogue. We can now see that protecting children from failure and stopping them from taking any decisions for themselves leaves them more prone to fearfulness, less able to deal with adversity, and fundamentally less capable of getting on with life.

Unfortunately, its adult counterpart, helicopter politics, is as popular as ever. In this style of politics, no harm, no societal difficulty, no injustice is, in principle, beyond the reach of the state. Political debate is about how, not whether, the government can solve your problems. It’s therapeutic politics – politics as medicine or as parenting. What it’s not is politics for grown-ups.

If you doubt me, just look at some recent ideas from the Government. Wages too low? Simple – boost the minimum wage by fiat . Not enough houses? Simple – make tenant eviction largely illegal . Don’t like smoking? Ban it . Childcare too expensive? Subsidise it . No problem is too small. On Friday, Parliament will debate pet theft and make it illegal “to induce a cat to accompany you”.

It’s easy, fun, and necessary, to knock this nanny statism. But it isn’t enough in itself. We have a nanny state, not just because most voters want it, but because most politicians do, too. State action gives power and influence to government MPs and a sense of purpose to the opposition.

That’s true whichever way round the parties are. After all, every wing of the Tory party seems to have some problem it wants the government to solve – “hate” on social media, taxing “unhealthy” food, regulating cyclists , the list is endless. All politicians nowadays see it as their job to get government to do things. For if that is not their job, what is?

Well, one element of that job always was, and still should be, to police the government: to stop it expanding its power and encroaching on the people’s rights – rights that they owned, not rights given them by the state.

The whole handling of the pandemic shows how feeble this conception now is. I have to laugh when I hear people argue that being a member of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is a barrier to domestic tyranny: did they not notice that, when raison d’état demanded it in 2020 , the ECHR and the Human Rights Act, just when they might have been useful, turned out to be no more than worthless bits of paper?

At the root of all this, I fear, is a fundamental downgrading of freedom as a value. Freedom used to be fundamental to Britain’s view of itself. Now even the Conservative Party barely uses the word.

Yet you can’t long remain a free society if you don’t believe in freedom. And it’s no good just saying you believe in it: you have to live it. Sometimes that means politicians deciding “we would rather live with this injustice or this social problem than expand the state to deal with it”. When was the last time you heard anyone say that? And that’s the problem.

I am not arguing for a libertarian nightwatchman state. There is never going to be a majority for anything like that in modern British politics. But we have to change the direction of travel.

At some point since the war – and I think I am aware of it happening in my lifetime – we moved from seeing ourselves as a society in which free individuals accepted government rules in certain areas for the common good, to one in which the state and society are almost the same thing, in which the state can in principle do anything, but allows citizens autonomy in certain areas, always provisionally, and always subject to overriding state purpose.

We moved from one to the other because we valued stability over dynamism. For a free society is dynamic. Free people won’t do what the great and good think they should do. They don’t necessarily want to live in allocated social housing, have their education from state-approved curricula, or travel only where and when the trains go. They won’t be told what to say and think. They want to experiment and try different things. They are eccentric in the best sense of the word.

People like this are inconvenient not just for government but very often for fellow citizens. Yet it is from the eccentric and the entrepreneur that progress happens. Squeeze them through tax, regulation, and disapproval, and the ideas and effort that spark growth go away. And that is what is happening.

Politicians of both parties say they want “stability”. That is certainly the mood of the times. Yet the people who most want and need stability are children. When they grow up they want, or should want, something else. And so should this country.

We need not stability but dynamism, we need creative destruction, we need an end to unprofitable businesses and the creation of profitable new ones, we need new homes, new roads, new airports, new more productive agriculture, and above all new ideas.

If we are to get them we need to end helicopter politics. And politicians, at least those on the Right, need to start saying to voters “Now it’s over to you. You fix it.”

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Persuasive Essay Examples About Smoking. Smoking is one of the leading causes of preventable death in the world. It leads to adverse health effects, including lung cancer, heart disease, and damage to the respiratory tract. However, the number of people who smoke cigarettes has been on the rise globally. A lot has been written on topics related ...
Should Smoking Be Banned?
Reasons Why Smoking Should Be Banned. One reason why smoking should be banned is that it has got several health effects. It harms almost every organ of the body. Cigarette smoking causes 87% of lung cancer deaths and is also responsible for many other cancer and health problems. Apart from this, infant deaths that occur in pregnant women are ...
On Why One Should Stop Smoking
Habitual smokers are at a very high risk of cancer. It has been known that smoking is one of the leading causes of cancer. Taking the case of United Kingdom alone, approximately 106, 000 individuals die annually due to smoke related cancer. Some of the diseases caused and or worsened by smoking include, lung cancer, diseases of the heart ...
Should Cigarettes Be Banned? Essay
Cigarettes contain many harmful chemicals; it was found that cigarettes have more than 4,000 chemicals. Most of these components are known to cause cancer. Smoking is known to cause lung cancer, bladder cancer, stomach Cancer, kidney cancer, cancer of oral cavity and cancer of the cervix. Ammonia, Tar and Carbon Monoxide are found in cigarettes ...
Persuasive Speech Example
Having a persuasive speech example to study can help you to create your presentation more easily. Although the persuasive speech below has plenty of facts, it's really an exercise in using vocal variety, gestures and exaggeration to sell the point of view that smoking should be banned in all public places. Read through it and see if you can ...
Why ban the sale of cigarettes? The case for abolition
And of course, even a ban on the sale of cigarettes will not eliminate all smoking—nor should that be our goal, since people should still be free to grow their own for personal use. Possession should not be criminalised; the goal should only be a ban on sales. Enforcement, therefore, should be a trivial matter, as is proper in a liberal society.
Should Smoking Be Made Illegal: Argumentative
In the "should smoking be illegal argumentative" debate, one of the primary concerns is the well-known harmful effects of cigarettes on the human body. Many people are aware that smoking cigarettes is detrimental. Cigarettes contain numerous chemical substances such as cadmium, butane, acetic acid, methane, ammonia, arsenic, methanol, nicotine ...
Banning Smoking in Public Places and Workplaces is Good for the Heart
The cardiac benefits increased with longer ban duration." According to projections by the authors, a nationwide ban on public smoking could prevent as many as 154,000 heart attacks each year. These findings are particularly important in light of mounting evidence that second-hand smoke exposure is nearly as harmful to the heart as chronic ...
Nowhere Left to Hide? The Banishment of Smoking from Public Spaces
On May 23, smoking in any New York City park, beach, or pedestrian mall — from Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx to Brighton Beach in Brooklyn — became illegal. The city council passed the ban ...
The pros and cons of a total smoking ban
Taxation on smoking raises more than £8.8 billion per year for the Treasury, noted Politics.co.uk. The TaxPayers' Alliance rejected the argument that smokers also cost the taxman more due to ...
14 Central Pros and Cons of Smoking Bans
1. They take away freedom from people. Some critics see smoking bans as a violation on one's personal liberty. They argue that people should have the autonomy to decide on what kind of lifestyle they will have. Although they are not totally against banning smoking, they say that it should be a personal choice. 2.
The case for banning cigarettes
Lifelong smokers lose on average a decade of life vis-à-vis non-smokers. Globally, tobacco causes about 5-6 million deaths annually. One billion tobacco-related deaths are predicted for the 21st century, with about half occurring before the age of 70. In this paper, we consider a complete ban on the sale of cigarettes and find that such a ban, if effective, would be justified. As with many ...
Prohibition no, abolition yes! Rethinking how we talk about ending the
As public health advocates struggle over how best to end the cigarette epidemic, one persistent obstacle to developing appropriate policies has been the lingering spectre of 'prohibition'. A misunderstanding of the USA's experience with the national ban on sales of alcohol more than a century ago has led even public health advocates to claim that we cannot end the sale of cigarettes ...
Should Smoking Be Banned in Public Places? Essay
Thesis statement. Smoking in public places poses health risks to non smokers and should be banned. This paper will be discussing whether cigarette smoking should not be allowed in public places. First the paper will explore dangers associated with smoking in public and not on those who smoke, but on non-smokers.
Three Reasons Why Smoking Should Be Banned
Annually, one of every five deaths in the U.S. is related to smoking, due to conditions such as pneumonia, bronchitis, lung cancer and emphysema, according to the CDC website. Smoking may affect sexual performance and increase the risks of heart disease and infections. Deaths attributed to smoking varied from state to state during the years ...
Smoking ban: Why are young people still taking up smoking?
Health reporter, BBC News. The government is planning one of the toughest smoking laws in the world, which would effectively ban it. Smoking has been on the decline for two decades. In fact, more ...
Freedom of choice and the tobacco endgame
Among those measures, I mostly talk about a cigarette ban. For public health, cigarettes are by far the most common and harmful tobacco product. Moreover, a cigarette ban is the most radical proposal. But my argument is meant to apply more generally. If freedom justifies a complete ban, then it is easy to justify weaker endgame proposals too.
Should smoking in outside public spaces be banned? Yes
Legislation to ban smoking indoors in public places is now commonplace, driven mainly by the need to protect non-smokers from exposure to secondhand smoke. A new domain for tobacco control policy is outdoor settings, where secondhand smoke is usually less of a problem. However, the ethical justification for outdoor smoking bans is compelling ...
A Persuasive Speech About Why Smoking Should Be Illegal Smoking
Download. Speech, Pages 6 (1328 words) Views. 13603. Hello, today I am here to talk to you about the life-threatening consequences smoking can have and why I believe that it should be illegal. Across the world, even in the most deprived areas, millions of people are smoking. Every minute of every day, these smokers, young and old, are paying ...
Persuasive Speech On Smoking
Persuasive Speech On Smoking In Public Places 831 Words | 4 Pages. General Purpose: to persuade Specific Purpose: to persuade the audience of the importance of banning smoking in public places Thesis: Smoking should be banned in public places because it is harmful to non-smokers who visit public places. I.
Persuasive Speech: Banning Smoking In Public Areas
Persuasive Speech On Smoking In Public Places. General Purpose: to persuade Specific Purpose: to persuade the audience of the importance of banning smoking in public places Thesis: Smoking should be banned in public places because it is harmful to non-smokers who visit public places. I.
Does Compelling Graphic Warnings on Cigarettes Violate Freedom of Speech?
WARNING: Smoking during pregnancy can harm your baby. WARNING: Smoking can kill you. WARNING: Tobacco smoke causes fatal lung disease in nonsmokers. WARNING: Quitting smoking now greatly reduces serious risks to your health. But increasing text and font size wasn't enough—Congress also wanted graphic images to accompany these textual warnings.
How bad is vaping and should it be banned?
It causes 13% of all deaths, including from lung, mouth, throat and bladder cancer, emphysema, heart attack and stroke, to name just a few. People who smoke regularly and don't quit lose about ...
Why ban the sale of cigarettes? The case for abolition
The cigarette is the deadliest artefact in the history of human civilisation. Most of the richer countries of the globe, however, are making progress in reducing both smoking rates and overall consumption. Many different methods have been proposed to steepen this downward slope, including increased taxation, bans on advertising, promotion of cessation, and expansion of smoke-free spaces. One ...
The banning of public smoking
Therefore smoking should be banned in all public places. It is true that smokers have rights to smoke and these rights should not be infringed upon. However, a non-smoker's right to breathe ...
Britain is forgetting what it means to be a free country
Well, one element of that job always was, and still should be, to police the government: to stop it expanding its power and encroaching on the people's rights - rights that they owned, not ...

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Should Smoking Be Illegal?

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Introduction

Health and well-being

Freedom and autonomy

Voluntariness

Irrationality

Preferences and endorsement

Banning cigarettes: pros and cons

Acknowledgments

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Should Smoking Be Banned in Public Places? Essay

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Should smoking in outside public spaces be banned? Yes

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Persuasive Speech: Banning Smoking In Public Areas