Smoking has both advantages and disadvantages. It depends on how we perceive smoking. From the writer point of view, smoking is fun, a reward, an oral pleasure and so many more. The writer even supported his writing with his own experiences and interviews he made. He further wrote that smokers will constantly defend the benefits of smoking because they are addicted to it. He believe that despite of all the harm that cigarette brings, smokers accept it with pleasure.
In our opinion, smoking definitely brings more disadvantages rather than the advantages because of its harmful chemical content, root of many diseases and its effect on the second hand smokers. Based on a research made by a team of researchers in London, UK, tobacco smoke contains about 4000 harmful chemicals. For instances, nicotine, carcinogen, benzene, tar, carbon monoxide, arsenic, hydrogen cyanide, ammonia and many more. Nicotine is a well known as a most addictive substance which can cause addiction. This is the major reason on why smokers hardly stop smoking.
Smokers feel smoking is fun and gives pleasure to them. However, based on a research made by WHO, smoking is the main cause of many diseases such as lung cancer, bronchitis, emphysema and heart disease. Smoking harms nearly every organ of the body and diminishes a person’s overall health. Carcinogens that contain in cigarettes cause damage to our DNA, or cause cells to divide faster than their normal rate, thus causing cancer. Smoking is a leading cause of cancer and death from cancer. Cancer death from smoking is one of the most preventable types of death. A pregnant smoker is at higher risk of having her baby born too early and with an abnormally low birth weight. A woman who smokes during or after pregnancy increases her infant’s risk of death from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Regardless of their age, smokers can substantially reduce their risk of disease, including cancer, by quitting.
As many would think that smoking only affects the smokers’ health but it is actually false. Second hand smoke, also called passive smoking is the combination of “side stream” smoke and “main stream” smoke. Side stream smoke is the smoke given off by a burning tobacco product whilst main stream smoke is the smoke exhaled by a smoker. The International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified second hand smoke as a known human carcinogen or cancer-causing agent. Inhaling second hand smoke causes lung cancer in non smoking adults. Approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths occur each year among adult non-smokers in the United States as a result of exposure to second hand smoke. Living with a smoker increases a non smoker’s chances of developing lung cancer by 20 to 30 percent, as estimated by the U.S. Surgeon General. Exposure to second hand smoke may increase the risk of heart disease by an estimated 25 to 30 percent too. Therefore, smoking does not bring harm only to the smokers themselves but to those around them too
