Open Letter to Smokers

Dear smokers of this world,

I believe that smoking in all public places should be banned! All public places meaning restaurants, shopping malls, hospitals, hotels, and others. By smoking, you are not only harming yourself but also harming others. After writing this letter, I hope for smoking to be banned in public places or at least have the amount of smoking decrease in the world.

If at the minimum, one person stops smoking or decides to never start smoking, then this letter’s goal would be achieved. Smoking affects other people (population), affects your health/wellbeing, and costs more in general. People may see smoking as a positive thing, however, I believe that there are more negative than good things about smoking.

Think before you smoke, because smoking doesn’t only affect you. People who do not smoke may also get affected if they are around smokers. These non-smokers are called secondhand smokers and this immensely impacts their life. According to SmokeFree secondhand smoke over a long period of time will cause health problems, for example, adults are more likely to have cancer, heart disease, breathing problems, colds and flu, irritated eyes, nose, and throat. As for pregnant women, they have a chance of losing their babies, have their babies die of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), have babies who are cranky‚ restless‚ and get sick more often, or have babies with learning problems. As for children, they will most likely get more severe asthma attacks, bronchitis, pneumonia, and other breathing problems such as coughing, wheezing, and ear/lung infections. By smoking, you may also be hurting the people you love most. Smoking may cause you pleasure but it would also probably be killing the people you hang around most. Would you really want to endanger your wife/husband/friend/child? If we were to ban smoking, this would help make the environment and the world a safer place.

Banning smoking does not only benefit other non-smokers but would also help you! Smoking causes the need for healthcare help, meaning that smokers will need to pay a lot of money to help with the side effects of smoking. This would basically mean that smoking is killing you by the second. Cigarettes are made from tobacco. Inside this plant, there is a drug called nicotine. Nicotine is a very strong poison that can kill a human even a small amount is injected into the bloodstream. Basically, this means that inhaling the smoke is killing you (Stop Smoking Booklet). Also, if more people start smoking (which eventually will happen because the world population is increasing) than the cost of medicines to help will also increase. By smoking, you are allowing a drug inside to your body and creating a hard future for yourselves and others who start smoking. 40,000 people die from smoking-related diseases every year, would you like this to happen to you? If we were to ban smoking, then the cost of healthcare for smoking problems would decrease because not as many people are smoking and the business wants more customers. And once you think about it, smoking is not a necessary need in your life, there is still a possibility of breaking this habit.

People who smoke may think that smokers should have the right to enjoy themselves because if they choose to smoke, then it is their right. Or there is a chance that if we ban smoking, many places such as clubs and bars would go out of business. Yes, it is true that smokers have the right to do what they please, however, they should not be allowed to put others in danger as well. This is why I would only like to ban smoking in public places instead of private spaces. Smokers would still be able to smoke and not affect others. Also, clubs and bars would lose customers, but they would also gain the customers who did not enjoy breathing in secondhand smoke.

I believe that we should ban smoking! I believe that we should ban smoking in public areas! I believe that we should protect ourselves and the environment! And I believe that we can make this work. By banning smoking in public areas we are not constricting the individual of smoking but just simply protecting those other second-hand smokers. This compromise protects the environment, smokers, and non-smokers. So I speak for the people who don’t appreciate smoking, I speak for the secondhand smokers. Let's ban smoking in public areas.

Sincerely,

a Secondhand Smoker