Tobacco Ban to Save Lives, Research Paper Example

The below essay is designed to argue that the sale of tobacco products should be banned in order to improve the health of the population within the United States. The author argues that there are more health risks and negative affects of selling and using tobacco than benefits, therefore, in order to protect the interest of the majority of the population, thee government needs to regulate the sales.

Health Conditions Associated with Tobacco Use

The updated, 2014 report of the Surgeon General (1) found that smoking related conditions in the United States were responsible for 20,830,000 premature deaths between 1965 and 2014.

The WHO’s 2012 report (3) confirms that “tobacco use and secondhand smoke exposure are major causes of cardiovascular disease”. As several scientific studies have confirmed, smoking clogs arteries, and this can increase the risk of a heart attack. At the same time, according to the report of the Surgeon General (3), nicotine is an addictive drug, and has an “acute toxicity” (Surgeon General, 5). No regulator would consider allowing companies to sell poison and toxic substances for public consumption openly, but by allowing the sale of tobacco products, they are doing just the same.

Moore and Hughes created a research focusing on empirical evidence regarding the link between smoking and increased health care costs. Hospitalization rates were significantly higher among smokers than those who considered themselves ex-smokers between the ages of 18-21, 26-30, and 36-45. These age groups represent a large proportion of the working population. This means that – while smoking might not kill all people immediately – it costs people money in lost hours and health care expenditures. In order to protect the economic welfare of the society, governments should ban the sale of tobacco.

Current regulations of the FDA regulate the sale of tobacco products, however, most of the rules only apply for packaging and displaying adequate warnings. The Tobacco Control Act, indeed, provides only a limited authority for FDA. Section 904 of the Act requires companies to disclose research related to their products’ health, toxicological, and other behaviors. At the same time, knowing that Nicotine is an addictive drug, and tar clogs the arteries, it allows the sale of the product.

The regulations regarding the sale of drugs are much stricter than the tobacco industry’s. The chart created by the website “Drug War Facts” shows that Nicotine is just as addictive as Heroin and Cocaine. Indeed, the dependence level created by Nicotine is higher than any other substance examined: alcohol, caffeine, Cocaine, and Heroine. Interestingly, the effects of withdrawal on human body are also higher related to Nicotine than Marijuana. The report states: “”In a large, nationally representative sample of US adults, the cumulative probability of transition to dependence was highest for nicotine users, followed by cocaine users, alcohol users and, lastly, cannabis users” (Drug War Facts.

If the government is ready to ban less addictive drugs, like Marijuana and label them as illegal, even though their negative health impacts are lower than cigarettes’, it would be logical to ban the sale of Nicotine containing products, as well.

Secondhand Smoking

The Surgeon General’s report confirms that among the over 20 million premature deaths, those who died of a smoking-related illness, “2.5 million were nonsmokers who died from heart disease or lung cancer caused by exposure to secondhand smoke” (Surgeon General, 1).

The 2012 WHO report states that the risk of cardiovascular disease increases by 30-40 percent among second hand smokers. Another report from the Surgeon General found that second hand smoking is extremely dangerous for children and infants. The report concludes that between 1965 and 2014 over 100,000 babies died prematurely because of parental smoking. Smoking of the mother significantly increases the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. At the same time, low birth weight and premature birth are linked to mothers’ smoking. This has a budgetary impact as well. Loss of productivity due to premature deaths costs the government more than 150 billion dollars a year. Exposure to second hand smoke also costs the health care budget a further 5.6 billion dollars each year.

As a conclusion, the Surgeon General’s report of 2014 find that “Exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke has been causally linked to cancer, respiratory, and cardiovascular diseases, and to adverse effects on the health of infants and children”. A recent campaign by Tobacco Free Kids features several study findings. Exposure of children to second hand smoking increases the risk of asthma, ear effusion, bronchitis, and pneumonia.  If a mother or father lets their children drink bleach, they are prosecuted for parental negligence. This is not the case with tobacco. Parents are not allowed to leave children in the car on hot days, as this increases their risk of suffocation. Second hand smoking – even if not directly – also increases the risk of chronic and life-threatening illnesses.

The Financial Aspect of Banning The Sale Of Tobacco Products

The WHO’s latest report on smoking (WHO, 75) found that tobacco taxation is one of the most effective ways governments use to generate tax revenue. However, there are many problems with increasing government income by allowing people to become addicted to a drug (nicotine), and endangering their health.

Bohme et al. (340) simply state that governments are allowing tobacco companies to avoid responsibilities, questioning the results of scientific research that links smoking to chronic illnesses. As the authors (340) confirm: “The chemical and tobacco industries have stressed the appropriateness of a particular type of evidence according to which type of evidence seemed most favorable to them”. While there is clear evidence for the direct link between smoking and risk of lung cancer, cardiovascular, and other conditions, governments fail to act upon the evidence, in order to preserve their tax income.

The main problem with the above described approach of regulators is that it endangers people’s lives, and increases the cost of health care. The WHO’s Atlas about smoking and its health impacts states that in 1999 smoking accounted for 6 percent of the total health care costs in the United States. As time goes by, and more people who have been smoking for a long time grow older, this expense is likely to increase. In the United States alone, in 1999, 76 billion dollars were spent on treating smoking-related illnesses. It is also shown on the map that smokers take almost double as much time off sick a year than non-smokers. This means that while governments focus on short term tax income, they are at the same time also increasing their expenditures by increasing the demand for acute and chronic health care services.

Conclusion

As the 2014 Surgeon General’s report confirms: “the burden of death and disease from tobacco use in the United States is overwhelmingly caused by cigarettes and other combusted tobacco products; rapid elimination of their use will dramatically reduce this

burden While regulations, such as taxation and labeling requirements exist, these do not solve the problem. These regulations are in place to cut back tobacco use, instead of banning it. The above research has shown that industry leading companies, health care professionals, and governments are aware of the risks associated with smoking and second-hand smoking, as well. Nicotine, indeed, is more addictive than some banned substances, as it has been noted.  It also affects a larger proportion of the population than illegal drugs, like Heroin.

By banning tobacco products from America’s shelves, the government would lose a substantial part of its tax income. However, long term, the society could become healthier, and by reducing health care expenditure of treating patients with diseases related to smoking, savings would make up for the lost income. At the same time, the productivity of the society overall would be increased, as healthier people would lose less working hours due to illness. The last reason why tobacco should be banned is to protect the next generation. Parents who smoke at home endanger their childcare’s health, and potentially cause their premature death. If this act was related to any other substance, it would be considered a crime, and parents would be prosecuted. However, as they use a legal substance to endanger their kids, the legal system cannot make them responsible for their actions. Overall, the long term benefits of banning the sale of tobacco products are greater than the negative impacts for the society, therefore, this is the solution that benefits the most people in the United States.

Works Cited

Bohme, S., Zorabedian, J. and Engliman, D. Maximizing Profit and Endangering Health: Corporate Strategies to Avoid Litigation and Regulation. 2005. Web.

Drug War Facts. Addictive Properties of Popular Drugs  N.d. Web. http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Addictive_Properties#sthash.Pk8NLPeM.dpbs

Moore, M. and Hughes, J. The Health Care Consequences of Smoking and its Regulation. NBER Working Paper. 2000. Web. http://www.nber.org/papers/w7979.pdf

Surgeon General and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Health Consequences of Smoking—50 Years of Progress: A Report of the Surgeon General.  2014. Web.

Tobacco Free Kids. Harm to Kids from Second Hand Smoke. http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/research/factsheets/pdf/0104.pdf

World Health Organization, and World Heart Federation ITC Project. Cardiovascular harms from tobacco use and secondhand smoke: Global gaps in awareness and implications for action. Waterloo, Ontario, Canada and Geneva, Switzerland. April 2012. Web.

World Health Organization. The political economy of tobacco taxation.2013. Web.

World Health Organization. Tobacco Atlas. 2013. Web. http://www.who.int/tobacco/en/atlas13.pdf