Smoking Bans in Public Places

I don’t want this to be one of those papers that completely forbids smoking anywhere at any time. I simply want to discourage smoking in public places. It has been discovered that just twenty minutes of breathing smoke filled air makes a nonsmokers blood platelets others as “sticky” as the platelets of a pack a day smoker. According to Tufts University health and nutrition letter, 35,000 nonsmokers die every year from diseases caused by secondhand smoke. Smoking in public places has been a serious issue around the United States for a while now, and just recently we are beginning to see the ban pick up in many places all over the country. The smoking ban is equally fair to both smokers and nonsmokers. The smokers still have the right to smoke and; they’re just restricted to certain places. Now nonsmokers have the chance to live a healthier lifestyle than they were living prior to the smoking bans. Most of us do not like to breathe others smoke, whether it is an annoyance or a threat to our health. Sari Harrar, author of Ban Butts, Save Hearts, states that tobacco products have raised the risk of illnesses in smokers such as rupturing plaque in artery walls, promoting blood clots, and prompting irregular heart rhythms. Second-hand smoke is especially dangerous to senior citizens, people with cardiovascular disease, and people with impaired respiratory function. According to Mark Hiller, a professor of health management and policy at the University of New Hampshire, Durham, and other illnesses may include cancer, heart disease, chronic lung disease, and asthma. And nonsmoking adults, tobacco is responsible for approximately 3000 lung cancer deaths each year. It also is capable of becoming the respiratory health of children. Second-hand smoke is also responsible for other diseases such as low birth weight, sudden infant death syndrome, and bronchitis. These diseases are not to be dealt with lightly because they can eventually cause death.

Here is an example of the effects of a smoking ban on a community: The smoking ban in Helena was introduced in June 2002, but was suspended after six months because of a legal challenge. Glantz and researchers at St Peter's Community Hospital in Helena compared the hospital charts of heart attack patients admitted from the smoke-free town with those from neighboring areas, as well as with records from Helena in the four years before the ban. During an average six-month period, heart attack admissions to the hospital had averaged just under seven per month. But this fell to less than four a month during the smoking ban. The study suggests that although second-hand smoke delivers only a small dose of harmful chemicals, it appears to have a very heavy impact on health (Shaoni).

As a result of secondhand smoke being a health factor, businesses all over the world have adapted to the world renowned smoking ban in public places. According to this source Americans for nonsmokers’ rights, smoking bans prohibit smoking in many places such as: aquariums, galleries, libraries, museums, bingo facilities,