The document discusses the harms of smoking cigarettes. It notes that smoking can shorten your life and lead to addiction as your body gets used to nicotine. Once addicted, quitting smoking is both mentally and physically difficult. Cigarettes contain over 4,000 chemicals, including 69 that cause cancer, and smoking increases risks of various health issues like cancer, heart disease, and lung problems. While the tobacco industry and governments profit from cigarette sales taxes, the real costs are to individuals' health and the healthcare system. The document also discusses reasons why people start smoking, stereotypes around smoking, laws around smoking, and ways to quit.

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SMOKING
When you choose to start smoking, you also are choosing that you won’t your life to be
shortened. People need to be more educated about how harmful smoking is. Why are there so
many people that start smoking? There are number of ways people start smoking, but if they only
knew how it makes you in a couple of years it may change their mind. After smoking for several
years smoking will start to take over your body. Your body will get used to getting the nicotine,
and when you don’t get the nicotine then you may end up sick and you will get a strong craving
for another cigarette. They say once you start smoking it’s the hardest thing to quit mentally and
physically. People don’t know how bad smoking is in till it’s too late.
One of main reason people start smoking is peer pressure and cause people don’t actually
know how bad it is for you and how addictive it is. Teenagers also smoke because they are raised
around it and they think it’s normal and ok. Some think that if they smoke they are being cool
and it impresses their friends. If you and your friend are sitting down and he/she pulls out a
cigarette then most of the time they will ask you if you would like one or some. Most teens
would say yes because they don’t think one cigarette can change anything. Little that they know
that one cigarette can give them cancer or give them a strong craving for another cigarette. They
also start smoking because they are curious. Everybody in his/her lifetime will try and smoke a
cigarette, and that’s when you determine if you like it or not. Some people blame smoking
cigarettes on their nerves because they say they are stressed out and need something to calm
them down. (http://vibhavari.hubpages.com)
Cigarettes are very dangerous to your body and can cause a lot of bad health problems.
The main things include shortness of breath, asthma, strained teeth, and arthritis. It can cause

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heart murmur, neuralgia, pneumonia, heart diseases, and cancer. Studies have proved in
cigarettes there are over four thousand chemicals in cigarettes and sixty-nine that can cause
cancer. (Answer) Health damages from smoking cost the United States one hundred fifty billion
dollars in health care ever year. Every time you pick a cigarette you are taking all these risk of
hurting yourself. When you smoke cigarettes you don’t only hurt yourself, but you hurt others
around you. There were three thousand non-smokers adults that died from second hand smoke.
So maybe the next time you pick up a cigarette you won’t just only think about what it could do
to you, and you should think what it could do to others. (http://www.nutri.com)
Cigarettes are good for the farmers, the government, and the cigarette companies, but bad
for the people. North Carolina is a tobacco state so we produce more tobacco than anybody else.
The farmers grow the tobacco plant and they sell it to the cigarette companies. They make a huge
profit, but them half to put in the labor to make this happen. When the cigarette companies sell
their cigarettes to other smaller companies, then the government puts taxes on cigarettes, so they
can make a profit of the money. So when the people buy cigarettes it’s also paying the
government. The only people that get screwed are the people, because they must pay more to
please everyone else. This year in 2012 they are raising taxes on cigarettes. So usually you pay
fifty-seven cent to taxes now you are going to be paying one dollar and eighty two cent, by this
they will earn fifty million in revenue. (www.mtexpress.com)
There are basically two categories of cigarettes that are menthol and non-menthol.
Menthol has everything a non-menthol cigarette has in it, but menthol has fiber glass. You would
think that menthol cigarettes should be worse for you than non-menthol since the fiber glass cuts
your lungs. Studies show that there were less people that had lung cancer from menthol
cigarettes than non-menthol cigarettes. If you had a person who smoked a pack of menthol

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cigarettes and a person that smoked a pack of non-menthol cigarettes a day, then the person that
smoked non-menthol cigarettes could develop lung cancer up to nine times as fast as a menthol
smoker. Researchers say it’s much harder to quit smoking for people that smoke menthol
cigarettes. More black and Hispanics smoke menthol cigarettes. Kids also tend to smoke menthol
cigarettes because it has a mint taste which kills the bad taste of a cigarette. You should not care
about the taste of a cigarette you should care more about your health and not smoke.
There is a history of stereotypes about smoking. When cigarettes first came out it was not
all that big of a thing. When being out for a couple of years smoking started to get around and
more people started trying to smoke. They started to put it on T.V and mainly most of the
characters that were playing the role of the bad guy or cool guy was smoking in the movie. In the
mid 1900’s North Carolina became the tobacco state. We had a very big boost in people that
started smoking cause that was the thing then. The bad thing was when they came out is that
there were no warning signs and the people didn’t really know how bad it was for them. Then
doctors started to see people get cancer and have lung problems so they doing research on how
harmful smoking was but by then there were so many people smoking that was addicted and
could not quit even know they knew had bad it was for them.
It’s easy to start smoking, but it’s one of the hardest things to quit. It’s like a drug you
just won’t more and more. People say it’s a mental and physical struggle to stop smoking. In an
interview I asked some questions and most people told me that they are just used to picking
something up and hitting it. Some people told me that they are tried to quit but they just can’t set
their mind to it. If something is hard or when they need to take a break they say the first thing
that comes to their mind is a cigarette. One of my questions in my interview was what does it
take for you to stop smoking, and he told me that he would need a plan and some support. So I

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suggested a couple of good ways for him to quit. So I introduced them to the electronic cigarette.
It’s strictly water vapor and has levels of nicotine that you can adjust so you can stop smoking.
There are nicotine patches that you can buy that puts a little nicotine in your system so you can
gradually stop. Also they say if you put candy in your mouth every time you get the craving then
that will help. There is also nicotine gum that you can choose if you need something to put in
your mouth and chew to forget about the craving. They say if you work out or do something that
keeps you occupied then it will be much easier to stop. There is so many ways to stop smoking
so you can’t say you tried in till you have actually quit. (www.thesafecig.com)
There are a couple of laws for smokers. To buy cigarettes you must be of age eighteen
and must show proof of I.D. They also banned smoking from restaurants, schools, and any public
place. There trying to protect the people who don’t smoke from second hand smoke. They say
this will decrease the amount of people heart diseases, cancer, and emphysema. This banned
should help the cost of health care. I like and agree with this because no one doesn’t won’t to go
to a restaurant and sit in smoke and smell it while they eat. There are a lot of underage smokers;
therefor someone must buy the cigarettes for them to smoke. If someone is caught buying
cigarettes for a minor they are arrested and can serve jail time.
People don’t know how bad smoking is in till it’s too late. There are so many things that
smoking can do to you, and yet people still decide to smoke. When you smoke you are not only
wasting your life, you are also wasting your money. Every time you pick up a cigarette there is a
chance of getting addicted and if you become a steady smoker then you could lose up to ten
years of your life. Another thing to think about is when you are smoking around a kid or anyone
they are being affected by the smoke and could end up with cancer or lung diseases. Why would
you won’t to hurt other people because you choose to do something that’s not good for you?

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Everybody that smokes needs to see how bad it is for them, and consider stopping, and the ones
who are not smoking need to make sure they don’t start.