1. Final essay
1346018
Yoo Heekyung
For a long time, Seoul City had regulated smoking strongly, especially in
public place. However, Seoul city mayor recently announced that Seoul has decided
to stop regulating smoking, and allow citizens to smoke anywhere, and anytime. This
law surprised many citizens, and most of them are strongly resisting to this law.
Certainly, this new law will bring several serious problems. Therefore, the law which
stops regulating smoking is very problematic, and must not be enforced.
First, if Seoul city allows smoking in every place, second-hand smoke
problems will occur. According to IARC (2004), ”More than 50 epidemiological
studies have examined the association between second-hand tobacco smoke and
lung cancer” (p.227). Therefore, if the City does not regulate smoking, non-smokers
will suffer from smoking and serious health problems like cancer will occur. The
Seoul city has responsibility to protect citizen’s health because the city government’s
duty to protect citizen’s health is included in their taxes. Thus, the city government
should not enforce this law to prevent the occurrence of serious diseases due to
second-hand smoking among the citizens.
Second, the city environment can be deteriorated. Smoking damages not
only the citizen’s health, but also the environment of the city. For example, smokers
will throw cigarette stubs on the road thoughtlessly if they are allowed to smoke

2. anywhere. As a result, city road soon will become dirty. Also, smoke will overwhelm
the whole city and the air must be polluted by this smoke. To refine deteriorated city
environment, the government should spend lots of taxes.
Therefore, to prevent
deterioration of city environment and the waste of taxes, city government must
regulate smoking.
Finally, Seoul city will gain a bad reputation. Globally, the city which does not
regulate smoking is very rare. Therefore, if Seoul enforces this law, it could be big
world news. Seoul can be called ‘Smoking city’ and city image can be harmed by this
news. As a result, city value will decrease and traveler will not try to travel Seoul city.
In conclusion, the city government has the obligation to regulate smoking to prevent
decreasing of the city value.
If the city stops regulating smoking, many serious problems would arise.
Second-hand smoking can harm non-smoker’s health, and the city environment can
be deteriorated by smoking. Also, Seoul city’s value will decrease. In short, the Seoul
city government should be alarmed by these facts and must regulate smoking in the
public place strictly instead of enforcing this new, harmful law.
References
IARC (2004). Second-Hand Tobacco Smoke. Cancer in Humans. P.227.