Smoking

For a long time now many people have different views about smoking in public places. Smokers feel it is their right to smoke where and when they want. On the other hand non-smokers feel smokers violate their rights and endanger there life. Smoking causes heart disease, lung cancer and other serious illnesses. Cigarette smoking is the number one cause of lung cancer. A substantial number of lung cancers that occur in non-smokers can be attributed to involuntary smoking. There are some parts in the United States where you can smoke in public places, on the other hand in New York there are designated areas. While some people feel that smoking in public places should remain since it is their right, smoking in public places should be banned because second-hand smoke will endanger non-smokers health and it pollutes the enviroment.

Smokers feel they have had the right to smoke in a public place for so long that it should not be taken away. Resturants and businesses should be allowed to set their own smoking rules, based on demands of the customers. Also business may decrease if they do not allow smokers the right to smoke, ecspecially bars and restaurants. The work place is another problem for smokers, now they have to go outside even in the winter to have a cigarette, even though they used to be able to smoke inside.A strong supporter on smokers rights is Democratic Assemblyman Dick Floyd, who wanted to vote for a controversial smokers right bill. He feels it is not a smoking bill, it merely protects the people who use legal substances such as tobacco and alcohol in their homes from job discrimination.

However, smoking in public places is a danger to non-smokers health for the reason of passive or second-hand smoke. The public does not realize the significant hazards of passive smoking. A U.S enviromental protection agency stated second-hand smoke is the third major cause of lung cancer in the United States. The simple separation of smokers within the same air space may reduce, but does not eliminate exposure to passive smoke. In Arizona five thousand and six hundred Americans died in 1989 due to passive smoke. A recent federal Environmental protection agency reported on the dangers of second hand smoke. They found this kills fifty-three thousand non smokers a year. By putting a smoke free policy into effect, it will send a strong message about protecting health. Even though designated areas are set aside for smokers this does not really protect a non-smoker. The heating and air conditions does not filter out carcinogens well enough and the smoke drifts onto non-designated areas.

Finally, if public smoking is kept legalized we will have major problems facing the environment. One problem is alot of people are irritated by tobacco smoke. A man named General C.Everett Knoop released a report saying that passive smoking, when a non-smokers breathe smoke in an enclosed area, it causes as many as five deaths a year. Smoking in a public place is an air pollutant and it can damage health in a number of ways. The four major health hazards fall into air, water, and noise pollution. Air pollution can lead to various forms of respiratory disease. The main problem of smoking in a public place is indoor air pollution. Some of these problems that result indoor air pollution is building ventilation that has been reduced to conserve energy, with the result that ventiliation is simply inadequate. Combustion by products from smoking tobacco have produced substances, smoke included, that contaminate indoor air. The problem effecting a person who is in a contaminated enviroment may result in coughing, whezzing, chest tightness, muscular aches, chills, headaches, fever and fatigue. To solve this we have to have extra ventilation and keep designated areas in the public places if there are any.

Although some claim that smoking in a public place is their right and should be kept that, smoking in public places should not be legalized because it will endanger non-smokers from passive smoke and it pollutes our enviroment. The state of New York will remain restricting smoking to designated areas. Cigarettes are the most deadly habit, affecting the greatest number of people in the world today. A ban on public smoking would create a healthier country.