How bad are cigarettes for our country?
Leo Desidero
Everyone knows that cigarettes are expensive, unhealthy, and cause many problems for people in the United States. No matter how bad something is, there is always a benefit for having it.
Cigarettes are a piece of paper wrapped around a plant called tobacco. Tobacco contains a seriously addictive substance called nicotine which is what keeps smokers hooked to them. Doesn’t sound too bad, right? It wouldn’t be if it weren’t for the other chemicals inside cigarettes. In fact, a chemical called arsenic is used in cigarettes. Arsenic is a chemical primarily used in rat poison. In your body this chemical disrupts the movement of ATP which prevents the body from making energy. This is what gives some smokers that relaxed and calm feeling when smoking. Other chemicals such as benzene, hexamine, and butane are all found inside the little piece of paper. All these components sound bad but what can they actually do to your body? Around 70 of the 7,000 chemicals in a cigarette cause lung cancer. Smoking can also tighten vital arteries in your heart which can cause heart disease. These side effects can lead to easy deaths. The amount of deaths worldwide related to tobacco usage are presented in this graph.
Smoking cigarettes is bad for your health and can easily lead to an early death. However, cigarettes are very good for the economy. Cigarettes are very expensive. The average cost of a pack of cigarettes around the country is $6.28. Combine that with 35 million Americans that smoke regularly and you have yourself a good amount of money. The United States makes roughly $12 billion dollars per year from cigarettes alone. This contributes to our economy. Philip Morris of Philip Morris International stated, “smokers are doing their country a huge favour by boosting tax revenue, dying early, and not drawing a pension.” The manager of a big time tobacco company congratulated his customers for killing themselves for the country. To delve deeper into that topic, chemotherapy is a very expensive procedure that does generate more money as well. It can go as high as $12,000 per month. Cigarettes are a big part of the economy and really make money for our government. The American Tobacco Company held a monopoly in the United States for a brief time. In 1890m, the company developed smoking tobacco and quickly took over. It was unmatched in its business. It had complete control over the tobacco industry. In 1911 the company was disbanded by the government.
Cigarettes are a mixed bag for the United States. They create money and jobs but also kill lots of people and cause people to lose lots of money. To actually come to a definitive answer, cigarettes are okay for our country. Cigarettes are a tool of self harm. No one makes you smoke cigarettes and waste your money except for you. Cigarettes have been around for a long time contributing to lots of our communities money.
Works Cited
“Current Cigarette Smoking Among Adults in the United States.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 10 Dec. 2020, www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/adult_data/cig_smoking/index.htm#:~:text=In 2019, nearly 14 of,with a smoking-related disease.
“Deaths.” Tobacco Atlas, 21 Nov. 2018, tobaccoatlas.org/topic/deaths/.
“Health Effects of Smoking.” American Lung Association, www.lung.org/quit-smoking/smoking-facts/health-effects/smoking.
Jr., Robert W. Carter. “American Tobacco Company.” NCpedia, www.ncpedia.org/american-tobacco-company.
Kmietowicz, Z. “Tobacco Company Claims That Smokers Help the Economy.” BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.), BMJ, 21 July 2001, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1120774/#:~:text=Smokers are doing their country,the tobacco giant Philip Morris.
It’s truly interesting the amount of smokers there still is in the world after figuring out that smoking is horrible for you. I never took into perspective how beneficial it was for the government however. I think we could even raise the price on cigarettes and it would benefit the government even more. People still want cigarettes because they’re addicted so raising the price a little wouldn’t be losing any buyers. I never thought of the other side of it being chemotherapy and doctors visits for smokers to try to prevent illnesses they may have adapted due to smoking. That and the cost of cigarettes are beneficial to our country but at what cost? It’s weird to think something so bad for you would be beneficial to others but it’s a personal choice so I think that if in doing so, the government can use the money to spend on other things it works out.
ReplyDeleteYour post is actually pretty scary. The benefits of people smoking is that they spend a lot of money and die early, therefore not taking pensions, or medicare and such. This is a very depressing way of seeing the issue, although it is true. No one is making people smoke, it's their own choice. And the more cigarettes are seen as bad, the more excise taxes will be put on them, the more money people will have to spend. Cigarettes have excise taxes to discourage people from smoking, but in reality because of the addictive nature, I think this could actually be a way to make more money for companies.
ReplyDeleteIt's pretty upsetting that something that can be so helpful to our economy is as deadly as cigarettes. Of course we all went through the "don't smoke" units in health class and whatnot and I know at least I was thinking, "Why don't they just make it illegal if it is so bad?" No doubt smoking is very expensive and puts money into the economy, but I would also argue that it is harmful to the economy too. Smokers are more likely to get lung cancer and die, which removes workers and consumers from the economy. There's also an ethics question; Is it okay to keep something that's so harmful legal to help the economy? You make a good point though that smoking is a choice, but a lot of older people started smoking before we knew how bad it was and are now addicted.
ReplyDeleteThis was an interesting read. I didn't know that people have spoken so negatively of smokers so publically, yet people continue to purchase cigarettes. It's strange to see how such a negative thing as smoking and the effects of it can be so good for the economy. So it that can case would it make organizations "like DARE" and "truth" bad for the economy overall? Yet another case of the economy and public health interfering with one another.
ReplyDeleteYour article is very interesting! I have always thought of cigarettes being a very bad thing with only negative effects, but it turns out that they actually have many benefits for our economy. I never knew how expensive cigarettes were either, that’s crazy! I looked it up and found “According to the National Cancer Institute, the average cost of a pack of cigarettes is $6.28, which means a pack-a-day habit sets you back $188 per month or $2,292 per year.” All of this money for a lifetime of smoking plus money for having to deal with any health issues the cigarettes may cause, is great for our economy, especially considering how many people smoke. I totally agree with you that cigarettes are okay for our country because nobody is forcing people to smoke, that is their choice, and it’s benefiting everyone else by helping our economy.
ReplyDeleteIt makes me sad to say, but there’s not really an easy way to take cigarettes out of the country as a whole, despite how harmful they are. It’s true that they play a decent part in our economy, but I wonder how much of a difference it would make if that money were to be taken away. If there were no cigarettes, what could people do with that $12 billion? Would people make smarter decisions? Would they invest the money in stocks, or spend it on other harmful substances? Or maybe they would just waste it on food or lottery tickets. Like your point said, the people have the choice to buy what they want, so it’s not necessarily the businesses’ faults for selling the items in the first place. People will continue to make stupid decisions, but it will still end up helping the economy in the end.
ReplyDeleteIt is really surprising to hear just how many things are in cigarettes, and even more surprising to hear that one of them is used in rat poison. I have always wondered why cigarettes are even allowed to be sold, the amount of negatives from cigarettes massively out ways the positives. In fact there is only one positive of cigarettes that I can think of and it is something that you mentioned, the effect it has on economy. I had no idea how big cigarette company's were and how much money they bring in and it's kind of crazy.
ReplyDeleteI think its weird how our economy can profit off of killing people, and that honestly if we stopped it could greatly impact our economy.
ReplyDeleteI never fully understood how big this industry really was. It's crazy how large we let industries get that are killing are own people. It makes sense that they help the economy as they have addictive chemicals in them and are sold much more expensive then what they are really worth. Something that is addictive with a large profit margin is great for making money. Thanks to these two things big tobacco gets rich, but the government and state obviously get there taxes from it.
ReplyDeleteI never considered the economic impacts of smokers. Like almost everything nowadays, smoking is a business, and a big one by the looks of it. It's pretty morbid to consider what Phillip Morris said, but if you really think about it, he spoke the truth. Smokers are doing the American economy a huge favor by buying lots of cigarettes and then dying quickly. The sad, harsh, and disgusting reality of this industry.
ReplyDeleteI always wondered why cigarettes are legal while other substances that do less harm to the body remain illegal, and this answers my question. It's surprising to hear how much the country benefits off of cigarette purchases, chemotherapy, and even early deaths. The fact that people speak so negatively on smokers and they continue to smoke just shows how addictive it really is. This was a very interesting read.
ReplyDeleteIt is extremely intriguing to hear about the effect cigarettes have on america. It obviously is extremely unfortunate that cigarettes have such a positive effect on the economy. Also, something that I have always wondered about is how did doctors and people in general used to advertise cigarettes as if they were good for you? Clearly we didn't have the correct information, but still. The fact that one of the most abundant things in a cigarette is something that can also be found in rat poisoning is crazy to me. Overall, although it does a great deal for the economy it negatively effects so many people that I believe we should make it even less accessible for people to obtain cigarettes therefore leaving less people to become attached and addicted.
ReplyDeleteThis post is amazing the information is perfect the way you put the information on there. Cigarettes are really bad for you. Kills you I think this post is very useful to not only us as students but maybe even adults too
ReplyDeleteAs someone whose family has struggled a lot when it comes to smoking and such, this article was very interesting to read. It's upsetting how most companies who produce cigarettes so obviously don't care about their customers and are pushing their product just to make money. Do you personally think the US should place stricter laws when it comes to the accessibility of cigarettes? Or do you agree with policies from other countries where their laws are more relaxed than us and the problem of addiction isn't really prevalent? Personally, I think we should take the route of other countries. You look at countries like Germany or France where minors are able to drink alcohol and their addiction levels are significantly lower. I feel that it won't matter if we make the laws more strict because people will still find a way to access it, no matter the cost.
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