There is a deadly poison being given to millions of people every day in the United States. This poison, which is publicly available worldwide, highly addictive, and kills millions of people every year, is tobacco. Tobacco contains up to 6 percent of its dry weight as pure nicotine, and the Center for Disease Control, or CDC, suggests that nicotine may be just as addictive as heroin and cocaine. Add in the one hundred and fifty billion dollars spent annually by the United States on medical costs to treat tobacco related illness and the fact that one in every five deaths is a result of smoking and we should see the importance of changing the law to making tobacco a schedule A controlled substance. This would in effect criminalize the sale, manufacture, or possession of tobacco. This change is necessary.
Opium addiction ran rampant in the seventeenth and eighteenth century and nicotine addiction runs rampant today. Once the destructive properties of opium were widely known, it became criminalized in most of the world. Clearly these earlier leaders, who recognized that if the people are addicted to something that is killing them, they need to be protected from it, were far smarter than the ones who are allowing the big tobacco companies to become filthy rich at the public’s expense. Perhaps the large amount of revenue is more important than our nation’s health. Big tobacco has become the neighborhood pusher and our society has become addicted to their wares. This drug has such powerfully addictive properties that I personally have seen people rummage in public ashtrays outside the local supermarket for the little bit of tobacco that remains in an extinguished cigarette. I am a nicotine addict and I have tried unsuccessfully several times to quit. I panic at the thought of not having my cigarettes in my pocket at any given time. When I park my car and before I enter any building, I light up a cigarette because I may not have one for a while. After an hour or so I become real nervous and it becomes hard to concentrate or even be still and I have to sneak off and get another “hit”. This is a terrible way to live and should not happen to anybody.
The medical cost figures vary from one source to another but all agree that tobacco related medical expenses are the single biggest contributor to the high cost of insurance premiums. The medical costs incurred by treating these collective effects of smoking and chewing tobacco are estimated to be $150 billion (Parish pg2) annually for the United States alone. This expense drives up the cost of health insurance so fewer people can afford private insurance and the burden of the medical treatment falls on the state. The lost work and man hours due to tobacco related illnesses further strains our economy.
Smokers have become a pariah in our society and are often ostracized in designated areas if they are allowed at all. All 50 states have smoke free air provisions (“Fact Sheet” pg1) that have been enacted and most ban smoking in any public building. Even private clubs are more often prohibiting smoking on their premises. Public awareness has been increased through government and related health agencies in the last 50 years. Between 1965 and 1990 there was a national decrease in the number of smokers from 65% in 1965 to 23% in 1990. Some major companies will not even hire an otherwise fully competent prospective employee if they smoke. The financial effects of loss of productivity due to sickness and increased medical insurance costs are no secret to them. The bottom line is about money and if an employee costs more money to maintain, they are replaced as any aging inefficient machine would be. Some studies have been done on the behavioral effect that smoking has on us and the habit has even been labeled a gateway to harder drugs such as marijuana and cocaine. Smoking has even been linked to anti social behavioral patterns by altering the brains chemistry and our perceptions. The most likely reason for this is the way nicotine raises our blood pressure. That may cause an increase in long term anxiety that in turn is the root for a lot of most anti social behavioral patterns.
Nicotine attacks the membrane inside the blood vessels (Parish pg 1) by making little pits in the surface of the lining. This lining then begins to gather little bits of cholesterol and starts a chain reaction dam like effect that eventually leads to complete blockage. High blood pressure is the inevitable next step and this leads to heart attack and stroke. The most known effect on our bodies however, is the effect smoking tobacco products have on our respiratory system. The very act of burning the material heats up the organic matter to a state that turns it into a superheated gas (Brodish pg2) that scorches the delicate mucous membrane that our lungs and related organs are comprised of. Oddly enough, nicotine is more concentrated and thus more toxic in a colder state, but the way it is absorbed immediately into the blood via oxygen contaminated in the lungs its effect is compounded by its sudden rush into our systems. Tar is a byproduct of the process of smoking that has further respiratory damaging traits. Tar collects in our alveoli and reduces their oxygen retaining properties by clogging the path the oxygen enters. There are several compelling reasons to start to change the law and eventually outlaw tobacco. I see my children as a few of those reasons. I see a lower health care and general better health overall as another. I see a more productive society that isn’t hampered by the cost to treat the monkey that lives on the backs of a quarter of its population another. I see it happening soon.
