Re: Put it on the banned list

I found Linda's new blog about banning cigarettes very interesting. It is true that the United States have made it illegal for possession of Marijuana, Heroin, Cocaine, Ecstasy, and many more drugs.  Most people think of these drugs as a way for relaxation and to relieve stress. However, they are unaware of the devastating aftereffects that come from an addiction of smoking cigarettes as well. These drugs could cause some serious damages to one’s body. The same consequences apply to cigarettes.  The effects of smoking cigarettes are serious and in many cases, deadly. There are approximately 4,000 chemicals in cigarettes.  Hundreds of them are known to be toxic, such as carbon monoxide and nicotine. This is not a joking matter to be taken lightly.  It kills people slowly, day by day.  A large percentage of those who fell victim to lung cancer were also found to be cigarette smokers. Linda made a good point on how dangerous cigarettes could do to one’s health. However, she stated that the government has done nothing drastic, except raised the prices of cigarettes. I do feel that the government has not done all they could in their power to lower the smoking rate, but let us not forget about the cigarettes tax.  The government did put a special tax on cigarettes in order to reduce the smoking rate. It did lower the rate at one point, but it was not much of a significant number.

Regardless, people are going to do what they want to do. Like I stated earlier, smoking cigarettes quickly become highly addictive. Even a cigarettes tax did refrain people from purchasing them. I do agree with Linda that people are losing more of their income buying cigarettes. Not only does it negatively affect people's health, it hurts their wallets as well.  That is why I strongly agree with Linda that our government should completely ban these cancer sticks. In the past, the cigarette tax did not make an extreme impact in lowering sales. Likewise, it will not change now, so why bother having it at all? We might as well ban cigarettes overall. It is obvious that these cigarettes are not good for our health, and they have a large number of negative side effects.  As long as the cigarettes are still available to the public, there will always be consumers.  Therefore, the best way to protect and promote our country’s health is to completely ban cigarettes. After reading Linda’s blog, I took a lot of thoughts into consideration. As informed individuals, we should encourage people to quit smoking, protesting against cigarettes, and educate others about the negative side of cigarettes. We need to save our country. By doing little things like this, it could greatly affect the government into taking further actions to ban cigarettes.