Cigarette Smoking in the United States

Cigarette Smoking in the United States

Good morning, it is a pleasure to be here. When you turn on the television there are many different types of commercials on TV. Commercials may contain a movie trailer, an advertisement for a tooth paste, or an anti-cigarette campaign. I’m sure everybody here has seen a cigarette commercial on television, especially one of the truth ads where a truck comes up and dumps 1,200 body bags into the street in front of the ‘big tobacco” building, showing them and the public that 1,200 people die a day from tobacco. Everybody knows how cigarettes are dangerous, yet millions of Americans still continue to smoke daily.

Cigarettes contain thousands of ingredients. There are nearly 4,000 chemicals in a cigarette, and at least 43 of these ingredients cause cancer. These ingredients include Arsenic, which is a rat poison, Methanol, which is used in rocket fuel, and Ammonia which is used to clean floors and toilets. The main ingredient in cigarettes is nicotine, which is why cigarettes are so addictive. Nicotine is an addictive drug. It causes changes in the brain that make people want to use it constantly. Addictive drugs such as nicotine cause unpleasant withdrawal symptoms (Quitting Smoking.) If you know somebody who smokes, and they are without a cigarette it is not hard to notice how they can be more hostile or restless then usual.

In the United States there are different types or smokers. There are daily smokers, who are addicted to nicotine, and they become angry or inpatient when they are without a cigarette. There are also “social smokers” who only smoke in social scenes. These types of smokers may not be addicted to nicotine, but they are still considered smokers. An estimated 25.1 million men (23.4 percent) and 20.9 million women (18.5 percent) are smokers in the United States. Cigarette research has also shown that higher smoking rates are associated with lower education levels, and about 15% of college students smoke on a daily basis. Each year only 4.7% of smokers are able to quit successfully (Cigarette Smoking Statistics). Quitting smoking does not mean lessening the amount of cigarettes you smoke a day, or just taking a drag from somebody else’s cigarette. Quitting smoking means not smoking at all.

In movies such as Basic Instinct, or Titanic all of the main characters are cigarette smokers. Cigarettes are the most heavily advertised product in the United States. The tobacco companies spend 4 billion dollars a year trying to get Americans to buy their products. Cigarette advertisements are not allowed to advertise in any children’s magazines, or on the television. On the contrary, Cigarette ads can be found on billboards, or adult magazines such as Penthouse or Rolling Stone (All Facts). Famous cigarette advertisements such as Capri Cigarettes, the ads show an attractive woman in a peaceful island atmosphere. The ad says “she’s gone to Capri and she’s not coming back”