Smoking Propaganda

Smoking kills. This is what just about everyone is told either from their school, family, or friends at one time or another. But does it kill? Is smoking the leading cause of lung cancer or heart attacks? Facts of smoking around the world are very different from the United States which can lead to the belief that smoking studies cannot be trusted in America and that the habit of smoking causes nowhere near the harm caused by other major problems in the country.

    Smoking in other countries does not support that smoking is bad. In Greece, the percent of smokers is higher than in the United States but that country has less cases of lung cancer every year. If all of these cancers and diseases are caused by smoking in the U.S, they should be occurring in heavier smoking countries also. Smoking rates have been increasing with teenagers; 3000 teens start smoking every day. If smoking causes premature death, a so called 440,000 a year,  then why is the commons age of death steadily increasing every year?

    Compared to other major problems in society, smoking seems to be less harmful than illegal drugs, crime, starvation, or alcohol abuse. Yet, anti-smoking agencies spend millions of dollars warning citizens, “Don’t Smoke!” on television, magazines, and billboards. The money spent telling the public not to do this legal act could be spend solving the problems mentioned above. Solving these problems would benefit everyone and encourage people not to commit more serious and dangerous crimes. Smoking a cigarette has become such a looked down upon subject to many people. But alcohol is consumed by sixty four percent of people over twenty one and can cause drunk driving due to impaired vision and thought which may lead to death. Why is alcohol consumed more commonly than cigarettes, when it can lead to a gruesome drunk driving accident?

    The W.H.O. (World Health Organization) claims that 440,000 people die every year due to smoking related deaths. The World Health Organization uses a robot called S.A.M.M.E.C. which calculates smoking related death. The computer is not reliable because it makes an accounting of people who smoke, but die from non-smoking related health problems. If one man had a history of poor health problems, abused drugs, and smokes, the man will be ranked as having a smoking related death if he dies, but not because his death was a direct cause of smoking. This may be the reason why the facts of smoking related health problems are exaggerated.