Essay, Research Paper: Smoking

Smoking. What makes millions of teens worldwide inhale? If you examine the problem closely you will see that smoking is on every typical teenager s TO DO LIST . Now in order for something to make that list it has to: annoy any form of authority, be dangerous and rebellious; something illegal would do the trick also. Smoking fits the categories perfectly. Teens start smoking for various reasons, to be cool for instance. To look mature, and let s not forget our well-known cause for many things that teens do: peer pressure. Smoking is becoming a social event in its own way. You can spark up a conversation with someone just by asking, Do you have a light? or Hey man, let s go have a smoke! Some teens believe that smoking makes them more mature, those are the people with an identity crisis, they want to be recognized, but smoking isn t the way to get attention.
Smoking is becoming very profitable to some people. Tobacco companies make billions just because every minute en estimated amount of teens in North America (126000) light up for the first time. The tobacco companies aren t the only ones cashing in on the issue. In Ontario you have to be 19 years of age in order to buy cigarettes, speaking from personal experience in Russia the age requirement is 18, but no one seems to care as long as the rubles are coming in. Some storekeepers (mostly Asian) in Canada have a difficulty telling one age group from another so tobacco becomes available to just about anyone. Others on the other hand, knowing that the person is underage will charge almost double for a pack of cigarettes, but since they know the person isn t 19 therefore he or she wont complain, because of the nicotine monkey on their back. Not only tobacco retailers are profiting. People that make novelty identification cards that can be used to get into restricted places such as clubs, strip bars and others can also be used to buy alcoholic beverages and yes you guessed right tobacco. These Ids cost anywhere from 15 dollars for a fake Canadian citizenship and all the way up to 95 dollars for a real Canadian G2 driver s license with your picture and fake information on it.
The consequences of teenage smoking are harsh, but they don t affect the tobacco users at all. There s a fine if you buy cigarettes for someone who is underage, there s a fine if a store is reported for selling cigarettes for someone who is underage, but what about the people who want these products; they cant be held responsible because Oh they re dumb kids, they know nothing, forget it . That s how teenage smoking affects society.
Society is not the only thing that is affected by teen smokers. The smokers are putting themselves in great risk by consuming tobacco products. The various health warnings on tobacco product packaging, the TV and radio advertisements, even the new cigarette packs that actually have color photos of lungs, brains, and people suffering from tobacco cant stop the nicotine craze. Of course these things help, records show that the warnings on tobacco product packaging helped decrease the amount of smokers, but everyday a new badge of teens are seduced by nicotine.
Being a smoker myself I know that it s extremely hard to quit. I understand what I m doing to myself, but I don t want to stop. I understand that I will have to quit eventually whether it s when I m in a hospital bed with lung cancer or when I ll want to start a family of my own.
No matter how many times you say Smoking Kills There will always be people that will say Not me .