Essay/Term paper: Smoking in public

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Sociology Essays

11/2/99 Whinery 1


Got a Light Little Boy?


For years, there has been a huge debate on whether cigarette smoke affects both the people being around the smoke, or the people doing the actual act itself. There is a huge cloud of "smoke" on this topic that needs to be cleared. Who are we to believe? The tobacco company that has its own researchers, or the independent researchers that have nothing to hide? In the article, "What the Antismoking Zealots Really Crave," by Jeff Jacoby, he comes up with many points to go against non-smokers in which I disagree with him to the fullest.
Jacoby writes in his article that people are fighting for a lost cause to get rid of the smoking community altogether. Like the Prohibition Act of the 1920"s, the author states that people will rebel against the "Smoking Prohibition of the 1990"s". He further goes on to state that, even though smoking isn"t good for you, it has no medical basis for the apparent destruction of a highly economical product. Finally, he concludes by saying that it is the desecration of the person of himself/herself on whether or not they want to continue to smoke, or even start for that matter.




Personally, I can"t understand why the author of this paper would take the side of the smoker, unless to say that he is a smoker himself. It is safe to say that America founded an original way of making money a long time ago, who is to say that we can"t
find it again? With so many accusations on cigarettes, and with all of these independent researchers coming out with all of their data, how can this possibly be wrong? The simple fact remains that there are unknown truths about the tobacco industry.
It is always known that death is a certainty in life, and suicide is a way of death. But does that make it right? It has since been proven by the tobacco industry that smoking, is indeed, hazardous to your health. So, knowing that smoking is in fact a death warrant, why let it go on? It is only a matter of time before someone gets smart enough to try to sue the tobacco industry for Pre-meditated murder.
In conclusion, I find this article to be a little less than thought out. The author seems to be defending the killing of what are obviously dumb animals. Isn"t that cruel and unusual punishment? I think that it is a persons right to smoke, but when it comes down to bringing it into other people"s lives, it is unjust. The only way children learn about smoking, anything for that matter, is from seeing other people do it. Do you really believe that we learn by instinct? I would agree with out of sight, out of mind a little bit more.