Pressure against smoking is good

7:12 PM, Apr. 10, 2013  |  Comments

A recent Writers' Group article decried the contempt smokers experience, now that smoking is widely considered socially unacceptable. Naturally, no smoker appreciates rude anti-smoking comments or deserves to be wished ill health on account of his or her smoking.

However, social pressure against smoking actually is a good thing, in that it discourages people from taking up the deadly habit in the first place. Thanks to anti-smoking campaigns, smoke-free zones, and rising taxes on tobacco products, the U.S. has seen a decline in smoking for several decades.

At its peak in 1965, almost 45 percent of U.S. adults were smokers, but in recent years, that number has dwindled to about 20 percent. Back in the days before the dangers of smoking were common knowledge, even doctors were known to recommend smoking to help calm a patient's nerves.

Thankfully, we've come along way since then!

But even though fewer people are smoking these days, we still lose 440,000 U.S. citizens each year because of lung cancer, emphysema, heart disease and other illnesses caused by smoking. It's estimated that half of all smokers will be killed by tobacco - if they don't quit. In addition, secondary smoke is a real health hazard, not a mere nitpicky annoyance nonsmokers complain about. Around 50,000 deaths in the U.S. each year can be attributed to secondhand smoke, according to the American Lung Association.

Given the real dangers smoking poses to both the smoker and the bystander, is it any wonder there are a diminishing number of places a smoker can comfortably light up?

Elizabeth Shriver


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