Should Smoking Be Banned in Public Places?

Yes, people should stop smoking

After smoking is allowed in public places, smokers can choose to smoke or not smoke it is the smoker’s choice. But non-smokers or other pedestrians do not have a choice, they only can do nothing and inhale the stinky second-hand smoke.

Smoking should be banned in public places because smoke spreads. Smoking doesn’t just affect the smoker, but also other people. Allowing people to smoke in public places means allowing people to smoke anywhere public. It may make smokers feel happy but we also need to consider the negative consequences.

Imagine someone was smoking near or inside a restaurant, it isn’t very pleasant or healthy to smell smoke while eating. It is worse if the restaurant is indoors. Smoke can also be a distraction as some people like to study or relax in a study room or library. Also, workplaces will be affected as some employees will smoke while working, disturbing the other employees. Smelling smoke would make those people annoyed and uncomfortable because they are not used to smelling smoke for a long time. Smoking creates a poor environment to study or relax or work.

Smoking increases health risks and should be banned in public places. Banning smoking in public places can reduce the number of deaths and disease infection. Research has shown that only in the US, there are more than 480,000 deaths each year! More than 10 times as many U.S. citizens have died from cigarette smoking than have died in all the wars fought by the US. Smoking causes about 90% of all lung cancer deaths. Smoking can cause cancer almost anywhere in your body.

With all these health risks and deaths caused by smoking, there is no doubt that it is better to ban smoking in public places to at least ensure non-smoker’s safety. Research and estimates have shown that if 1 of every 3 cancer deaths in the US would not happen if nobody smoked. Therefore, smoking should be banned not only because some people don’t like to smell smoke, but also because it is extremely unhealthy.

Making the non-smokers struggle though their days just because a smoker can’t put down their addiction for an hour or two only shows how weak smoking really makes people, it proves the point that they should be banned from public places.

Smoking not only is unhealthy and increase health risks, but it also is an addiction. Smokers who smoke very often has a high chance of getting addicted to smoking. When smokers are addicted, they just crave cigarettes. A new study shows that 10% of youth who become hooked on cigarettes are addicted within two days of first inhaling from a cigarette, and 25% are addicted within a month. This is very dangerous.

Being addicted to smoking will make people can’t stand not smoking for just an hour or so. Heavy smokers smoke around 25 or more cigarettes. A day has 24 hours. So smokers smoke at least once within an hour. Cigarette addiction is one of the top ten or ten worst addictions. According to a report, it is estimated that about 3 out of 4 high school smokers will become adult smokers – even if they intend to quit in a few years.

In cigarettes, the chemical called nicotine makes people addicted. What nicotine can do to you is very dangerous. When taken in small amounts, it causes pleasant feelings and distracts the user from unpleasant feelings. This makes the user want to use more. It also affects the user’s mood, it is enough to speed up the heart and raise blood pressure! Nicotine reaches the brain within seconds after taking a puff and its effects wear off within a few minutes. The user starts to feel irritated. Usually, it doesn’t reach the point of serious withdrawal symptoms, but the smoker gets more uncomfortable over time. This is what most often leads the smoker to light up again. At some point, the person uses tobacco, the unpleasant feelings go away, and the cycle continues. If the smoker doesn’t smoke again soon, withdrawal symptoms get worse over time. When smoker reaches a certain nicotine level the smoker will need to keep up the usage to keep the level of nicotine within a comfortable range. Smokers become quickly dependent on nicotine and suffer physical and emotional withdrawal symptoms when they stop smoking. These symptoms include headaches, irritability, nervousness, and trouble sleeping. The true mark of addiction is that people still smoke even though they know smoking is bad for them. In fact, most people who smoke want to quit.

Imagine your favorite restaurant, only filled with disgusting smoke. You can’t enjoy your favorite burger, hot dog, chicken nuggets or steak because you have to breathe in the awful air polluted by cigarettes. Many years ago, public spaces were like that. The horrible air ruined the walls and discolored them. Not only that, but it also could affect your health in a negative way. In the US, as many as 135,000 people die per year by lung cancer from smoking. Even nonsmokers who breathe in the smoke have an increased risk of heart attacks. In fact, studies have shown a nationwide public smoking ban could avert a whopping 154,000 heart attacks, or prevent 26% of heart attacks per year.

Smoking has also been banned in a lot of outdoor public areas such as parks or beaches. The reason for this is, besides polluting the air, cigarette butts cause an increased risk of wildfire in the woods of parks. Additionally, they don’t want young children to pick up bad habits by seeing adults smoke. The wind can also blow secondhand smoke towards nonsmokers and that can increase their risk of heart attacks. Also, throwing a cigarette to the ground after smoking on it is littering and an animal could find it, think it’s food, eat it, and that could lead to sickness and even death. In other words, smoking is bad for the environment.

This is absolutely a ridiculous debate, of course it should be banned and especially within enclosed areas or where there is high congestion of people in outdoor public spaces such as theme parks or outdoor events and venues. Laws are created to protect individuals from their rights to freedom of privacy, health, etc being encroached on by others. Even if I were to leave my car or house unlocked, that does not justify a burglar to enter a property that does not belong to him. Second hand smoke poses greater risk to non smokers who don’t have a filter at the end and are inhaling cancer causing fumes. Cigarette smoke, just like any smoke or fumes, creates orders that ruin the ability for non smokers to enjoy their food or experience whether it’s dining, work, etc. ever been in an office environment where someone burned their popcorn and see everyone’s reactions? The purpose here is us to assume that the individual did not intend to burn their popcorn and destroy everyone else’s experience to enjoy their work or dining experience due to the fumes and smoke caused by the burn. This is not the case with cigarettes. One person states public places should be allowed because a person chooses to go there, well a person also chooses to light up a cigarette. This is not on a doctor’s orders or required by law. My ability to enjoy a good time without being inundated with toxic smoke should not be infringed on because someone chooses to smoke. Established sections that once occurred in planes, schools and restaurants are completely ineffective due airflow and I’m well old enough to remember how the bathrooms were always located near the smoking section and don’t get me started on airplanes. My right to experience anything should not be hindered over the optional choice of someone to smoke a cigarette. To all the smokers out there, enjoy the extra 100 plus dollars a month you also now have to pay in insurance because of increased risk to cancer due to the toxins in cigarettes. Save all that money and just stick your face by your exhaust pipe from your vehicle.

I think that there should be pubs and clubs that cater for both smokers and non smokers and that you make a choice go in or don’t! If a place allows smoking then no sale of food! No smoking if children are allowed! I’ve never been on a plane or owned a car (I’m 44 years old and smoke 10 to 15 cigs a day) so think even though I’m a smoker that my carbon footprint is lower than alot of non smokers who take 2-3 holidays a year and drive a car.. do these people sit on the plane saying that they feel bad for polluting the world. Also how many car journeys could they have walked instead!.. people love to tell everyone else what they should and shouldn’t be doing,eating etc.. a smoker goes to see their gp (paid more than there fair share in tax for this service) and no matter what the ailments are the doctor will say it’s because of smoking.. of the people they claim died of cancer due to smoking how many would have got cancer even if they never smoked? How do smokers live to 100 when they have smoked 85 years plus? Smoking 40+ a day.. would they have lived to 140 years if never smoked as at school they told me each cigs shortens your life by 5 mins.. your all brainwashed and don’t realise. Government and media just brainwashed society against single parents and people on benefits (showing women with 3 to 4 children).. now universal credit has got them living in poverty. Yet I was happy to pay tax to keep them as either way I pay the same tax I didn’t want the kids to suffer!!

Smoking affects every part of your body. Your body will be rotten and be damaged. I can’t understand WHY you guys spend your own precious money be smoking that bad, cancer thingy? It is not even good for your health, and the environment! Okay… It is people’s choice? Eventhough it is YOUR choice, I would prefer saving your environment.

I strongly believe that , many governments should be prohibited Smoking in public places because of many different reasons. First reason is that, it iseffected badly to non-smoker’s Health conditions by its dangerous contents such as sulfrit asid, nicotin, petrolium…etc.Secondly, the people who are addicted to smoking and lighted cigarrets in almost ones per every ten minute generally dont think and show a tendency to other people’s feelings espeacilly non-smokers feelings. As for as ı am concerned , we need attach importance to other people’s view about on smoking not only as a person but also as a sociaty that living together obeisantly.to sum up, the smokers must should be carried about the non-smokers feelings and thoughts because the second hand smokers are more effected than smokers due to unhealty and chemical contents of smoke that come from cigarretes.

Fundamental rights and duties go hand in hand .you can’t smoke in public ,neglecting others health and justify it by its you “RIGHT”. YOU ARE KILLING OTHERS RIGHT TO HEALTH.

Yes am worried sick of losing my family through it , its already taken away my brother. Its a disease, its poison, get rid of it everywhere, smokers will thank us for it in the end, after all what good is it doing them? None but they can’t see it as its taken over them and controls them they know they cant give up and are kidding themselves on if they think they can. They should be forced to give it up for the good of everyone.

Yes we deserve our rights of choice. But the people’s choices don’t just affect themselves. Far too many people are in financial crises. To plus to that smoking has an impact on people’s athletic ability and life threating cancers. Although smokers can smoke for 40 years, quit and have no affects, but far too many are killed from cancers. Around 5,300 deaths were contributed from smoking in NSW, Australia alone (2007). One quarter of NSW school students say they have smoked at least once, 17% say they have smoked in the last year, and 7% say in the last week. In my school I know 10 kids who smoke twice a week. As for second hand smoke more than 600,000 NON-SMOKERS die each year a third of which are children. In Australia alone 2.7 million people smoke. This may not seem like much and this is because people are starting to smarten up and do the research. Here is a small list of the cancers created from smoking; lung, larynx, mouth, throat, stomach, pancreas, kidney, bladder, and cervix. Some people say that we don’t know what causes cancers but we know smoking contributes greatly. Along with this we have cardio diseases like hypertension (which is high blood pressure), congestive heart failure (weakened heart muscles), coronary heart disease (narrowed arteries), blocked blood vessels, and the one of the biggest killers, stroke. Smoking during a pregnancy can lead to miscarriage, asthma, premature birth, learning and behaviour problems, and difficulty maintaining pregnancy. Even though we have all these affects people are still smoking. In a cigarette there are more than 4,000 different chemicals some of which some people find addicting but think of the other 250 chemicals which harm people. Yes everyone has a right to make a choice, but every choice should be the right one. My generation needs to be shown the right choice to try to get this out of our society.

I’ve never seen such selfishness in my life. This solipsistic mindset is getting out of hand.

Is any of the “no” sayers aware of secondhand smoking ?

My throat has been aching for about 4 days. I keep discharging heavy amounts of yellow-dark green mucus and phlegm, because the debris from a cig I haven’t put in my damn mouth still haven’t left my lungs yet.

My voice is -temporarily- gone. I have to carry napkins around with me every time, I can’t sleep due to lungs constriction, my asthma is exacerbated etc.

All this for what ? I’m punished for something I’ve never done, and I’m told to put up with that because people can do whatever they want ?

Sure you can do whatever the hell you want. Want to kill yourself ? Ok. Want to harm yourself ? Ok. But do that in private or places with like-minded people.

I’m not going to stop going outside because my life is endangered every time someone takes a puff in public.

So should wearing perfume. It gives me a headache. So should yelling at your children. It makes me uncomfortable and stressed. So should recreational driving. It makes the air I breathe dirty. And did you know that eating beef contributes to air pollution more than anything else? Prohibit eating beef. Chickens are more efficient.

a) I imagine the 53,800 people you state who die of second-hand smoke each year are not dying from the highly diluted smoke they occasionaly inhale from outdoors smoking. They are probably living with smokers who smoke in their own house or car where the smoke is concentrated. So banning smoking outdoors is more of an “I don’t like the smell, so it should be illegal,” than a “I got a whif of cigarette smoke today and I will probably die from it! Ban smoking everywhere I may be or pass by.” b) Young children are indoctrinated in school that smoking is horrible. If they start smoking when they are older, it is more because they think it is a “tough” or “rebelliously cool” thing to do, NOT because they are ignorant of the health risks. And it is already illegal for minors to smoke. There are fewer and fewer smokers to over-tax these days, so it’s only a matter of time before that tax revenue source will be shifted to the growing overweight population who far outnumber smokers and over-tax the health care system more. With the national health plan going into effect, there is certain to be more and more finger pointing and regulation.

I think this debate is a very good one.
Personally, I am more towards the “smoking should be permitted” side. I don’t see any reason why a person can’t enjoy a smoke every now and again. Yes, yes, it’s bad for you. But so is McDonalds. ;) And yes, second-hand smoking is no joke. But are we in the United States going to take away yet another right of the American people? Does it make sense for our local governments to begin banning smoking tobacco and begin to permit marijuana possession?
I’ve never smoked in my life, and I got brochitis as a small child from second-hand smoking. Yet I still believe that the American people do have a say on whether or not they can smoke in a public place.