What are the health risks associated with smoking

The coming of Europeans in America around 17 century brought about intensified planting, consumption, and trading of tobacco. Around the same time, there was the introduction of mass production and modernized technology. The two factors augmented the production of tobacco. People became familiar with the drug and consumed it. In the 17-18 century tobacco was the drug that had gained a lot of popularity among the American. The government benefits from the taxes citizens pay while they are purchasing. The contribution of these industry to the economy is one of the reasons why the government can not completely do away with the industry despite its effects. The government however gets involved in the control of the industries. From these findings it is clear that smoking causes health effects and also disabilities in people.

Drugs smoked Cannabis is the other commonly smoked drug. The Chinese used the plant to produce medicines as well as cure diseases. Slowly by slowly, people started smoking the drug because it has some stimulating effect on the body. The medicinal purpose of the drug ends when it is consumed in excess. Artist also set the trend of smoking the dope. For example the musicians used to smoke t before going to stage so that they can get the confidence. Research shows that a lot of diseases can be as a result of continuous smoking. Smoking affects nearly all the body organs since the smoke directly enters the bloodstream to all body parts. Research shows that approximately I7million citizens of America are victims of diseases caused by smoking.

When a single soul is lost from smoking,30 people are victims have serious health related issues. Smoking causes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD),heart disease, chronic bronchitis, stroke, emphysema, heart disease and lung diseases. This report seemed very convincing because Congress acted a year later implementing major legislation requiring Tobacco companies to apply the surgeon general’s warning on all their products. I then started to search for the earliest signs I could find of people questioning the healthiness of cigarettes. I searched the school’s database for “cigarette smoking” hoping to see what kinds of studies or articles were being put out involving cigarettes and changed the relevance to oldest to try and find the oldest results I could get.

I found an article from an academic journal that came out in 1857 titled The Tobacco Question – Is Smoking Injurious?. However I could not get the full text of it so I unfortunately could not see what was said in the article. It talks about a doctor Pease who seems to have an anti-tobacco pamphlet circulating that claims smoking causes “blindness, deafness, cancer, tuberculosis, insanity, apoplexy, dyspepsia, hardening of the arteries, heart disease and an endless multiplicity of other evils, physical, moral, and intellectual. ”(America , pp. This doctor appears to be ahead of his time as I cannot find other doctors leading a public campaign against cigarette smoking. However that may be because up until this point in time I have not seen many conclusive studies directly linking cigarette smoking to cancer.

As with the study from 1952 mentioned earlier even the researchers doing the experiments were not willing to say cigarettes were a direct causation of many illnesses. There was certainly an increase in experiments in the 50s and early 60s trying to link cigarettes and cancer. This gave the surgeon general the ammunition needed to come out with its report in 1964. Without all the studies done prior to the report it would not have had as an effective message as it did. Surgeon General Luther Terry rounded up 10 health experts to look at all the scientific evidence regarding smoking and health to come up with the final draft of his report (Perry. pp57). There were also plenty of debates about smoker vs non-smokers rights.

With non-smokers winning most of the battles bringing about less and less places for people to smoke. Today it’s almost hard for smokers to find places to smoke. Governments have also been increasing taxes on cigarettes throughout the years which have effectively discouraged smoking. (CDC) To go along with the legislation were advertising movements and educational movements to get people aware of the dangers of smoking and especially stop the youth from trying cigarettes. However they would be faced with advertisements involving doctors endorsing certain brands of cigarettes and tricky wording and flat out lying by tobacco companies regarding the health effects of cigarettes. However after the Surgeon Generals’ report in 1964 the government began gradually reducing tobacco companies’ presence in advertising spaces.