Custom «The Smoking» Essay Paper Sample

Smoking is a common habit among many people – young and old – across the world. Smoking has been legalized by many countries across the world. Many cigarette manufacturing industries and companies have also been provided with licenses meaning that they are legal companies. Even though smoking has been allowed, it has been proved to be harmful to human health hence leading to different questions and attitudes towards smoking. Some have social while other have unsocial attitudes towards smoking. As a result, many authors have written different articles to help address this issue. Lyndon Haviland is one of the authors that have been concerned with this issue as addressed in his article A Silence That Kills. This paper is, therefore, aimed at analyzing the types of social attitude that we should take toward smoking in accordance with Haviland’s article A Silence That Kills.

Summary

In his article, Lyndon Haviland says that tobacco-related disease kills 178,000 women annually in the U.S. yet a search for the public discourse on this fact discloses deep silence. We have failed as a nation to mount and support an organized public response to the continuing public health tragedy of tobacco use. There is, therefore, a need for the public health community to find a means of giving a voice to thousands of families who will experience death of their premature young ones due to tobacco use.

The public has remained largely silent even though quite a big number of people are activists and are working to counteract the harm of tobacco. There is a very little demand for action. We ought to find means to spark a national movement to demand the funding and implementation of comprehensive tobacco control programs (Haviland, 2004). We ought to overcome apathy and public silence. Haviland asks a question on how public health practitioners can change this silence into a public demand for comprehensive tobacco control that comprises of prevention, cessation, and regulation. He asks how we can join together to give voice to the women and men who die annually in America of tobacco-related diseases. He also asks how we can prevent the needless suffering of families throughout the country that emerges from tobacco use.

Haviland says that, as public health practitioners, we should start to plan tobacco prevention and control programs with the review of the inarguable facts. He says that tobacco remains the leading cause of preventable death in the U.S. killing more people yearly than AIDS, suicides, and accidents, among other causes of death. Tobacco is the only product that kills about one third of its users when used as directed. Haviland is asking why public is so silent and so deafening in spite of the harmfulness of the tobacco. He also asks the reason why the tobacco control community confronts the lack of concern, silence, and seeming insuperable barriers when implementing scientifically sound programs designed to prevent or reduce tobacco use in the US. Haviland says that the leading cause of cancer death among men and women is the lung cancer, and the majority of its victims die within one year of diagnosis (Haviland, 2004). Maybe the sheer magnitude of the varied negative health effects precludes a targeted demand for action.

The face and the shape of the present epidemic of tobacco use in the US is an additional reason for the silence. Tobacco is unequal killer because it is the poorest and less educated Americans who smoke at the highest rates and who bear an uneven burden of death and diseases due to their tobacco use. There is also proof that sexual minorities smoke at much higher rates compared to national average (Haviland, 2004). Tobacco takes a dramatic toll on racial and minorities’ communities even though they smoke less compared to white Americans because they have poorer access to medical care. Thus, we ought to confront the social and class dimensions of tobacco use so as to find our voice. A national movement to eradicate tobacco use ought to encourage participation at all levels and within all communities.

Synthesis

It is true that smoking is posing a great problem to our societies today. It is leading to death of many people daily. Cases of lung cancer and immature birth among others are also common today. This is not a new idea or fact, but it is an idea that is well known by government and public health practitioners. It is, therefore, annoying and disgusting to see that government and public health practitioners are not taking any action toward this issue.

Since the two organs are silent and have declined to address this issue, I concur with Lyndon Haviland that it is our time to act. We have to make a step and to draw public attention to this issue. There is an urgent need for us to help prevent smoking and use of tobacco so as to save our lives and those of generations to come. Imagine 178,000 women dying annually of tobacco-related disease (Haviland, 2004). We should make this issue a public concern calling attention of all people both affected and unaffected.

This article is of great significance and serves as a good start. By reading this article, we will be in good position to fight this pandemic. I know that this is a difficult task to make people quit smoking and make world tobacco free, but we will succeed if we believe that we can and stay together and focused.

In order to help people quit this killing behavior, we will first let them see the impact of smoking and tobacco at large. As Haviland asserts, the use of tobacco is not only killing, but also stigmatizing. Thus, we should change our attitude toward tobacco and view it as a killer product associated with all kinds of disease and stigmatization.

Conclusion

In general, this article is interesting and touching. Even though it lacks adequate evidence to support its assertions, it is all about factors that are affecting us either directly or indirectly. Tobacco and smoking have become common habits even in school going children and the aged. The consequences are severe as discussed in this article. While many smokers say that smoking makes them feel high, they pay their lives for this highness. The very disturbing fact about smoking cigarettes is that it will kill you even if you use it as directed.

This article is highly valuable since it can help us do away with this bad habit that has been killing many people. The attention of government is also called for by this article meaning that it is the responsibility of everybody to help fight this pandemic. Government should implement rules prohibiting the use of tobacco. Public health practitioners should also play their role by fully addressing the effects of tobacco. Media should also help fight this disaster because they are the ones that have facilitated and encouraged smoking especially among youths. They should be advertising and policing effects of tobacco and smoking on human health. We should therefore remember that no matter how little its effects seem to be, tobacco kills and hence we need to eliminate tobacco in our societies today.