QUIT SMOKING ESSAY – LIAM HEELEY

Smoking is a common addiction in this modern day that gas many negative effects to the user and also to the people around them. To represent how wide of an addiction smoking is, 480,000 people die from smoking tobacco in the United States every year…this means 1 in 5 deaths are caused from smoking. That is the reason why you see so many billboards or adverts promoting and persuading people to stop smoking.

Smoking can cause many negative mental and physical effects, from causing all different types of cancer to your teeth rotting. However, even though smoking is so negative, it is so easy to prevent it! There is so much support out there for people who want to quit like classes or even advice pages online that give information on ways to quit and links to other organisations.

There are over 4000 compounds in cigarette smoke and all these together cause very bad effects on the human body, which is why cancer is caused from smoking. In the UK, somebody dies from lung cancer every 15 minutes, so this is why the effects of smoking are advertised all over social media and billboards for example. Explicit images are also printed on the boxes of cigarettes and people still buy them!! So many different techniques are used, all around the world, to try to persuade people to stop smoking or even to begin a course that helps them to stop.

Cigarettes mainly contain Nicotine, Carbon Monoxide and Tar. Nicotine is a highly addictive, fast acting drug that reaches the brain within 15 seconds of the substance being inhaled. Carbon monoxide is a very poisonous gas that has no smell or taste, which is why most smokers are not actually aware that this is in cigarettes, moreover this is absorbed into the bloodstream and travels all around your body, affecting your whole body. Tar is a substance that contains many cancer-causing chemicals, 70% of the substance is left in the smokers lungs.

Heart disease and cancer is 2 of the main effects of smoking, this is because of the high levels of substances that are left in your body from inhaling the poisonous gases. Heart disease and strokes are widely caused by the combination of taking the contraceptive pill and smoking.

Aswell as all of the effects on the smoker, the people around them are also very badly affected from the smoke that is exhaled from the cigarette. The effect is mainly on the children of the smokers, this is on many quit smoking adverts to take the smoker down the guilt trip.

The law on smoking is very strict to keep the young people of society away from smoking. In 2007 a new law was introduced which said that smoking is banned in all enclosed places in the UK, for example in pubs, restaurants and bars. In London smoking is no longer permitted in taxis, private hire vehicles and also on buses…Smoking at bus stop is also not permitted. It was also made illegal to sell or supply tobacco to people under the age of 18; this helps prevent young people from smoking, as they will end up becoming addicted. Laws have been in place for a long time, they are very effective and this is evident from these figures…in 1979 45% of the British population smoked and in 2013, it was only 19.3%, so this is a massive decrease in the amount of smokers in the UK.

In the UK, the NHS have a ‘SmokeFree’ campaign, which started in 2006, this helps to promote quitting smoking. This is widely advertised all over the UK, on social media, billboards, the radio and lots of other sources. The NHS introduced this campaign because the deaths that are caused by smoking cost them about £2.7 billion, which is a massive amount of money for something that can be so easily prevented. This campaign was created to remind smokers what the effects of smoking are and why it is important for them to stop smoking. It was also created to signpost and promote the support available for people who want to stop smoking and to represent that they are not on their own when trying to quit. The campaign has sponsors and it overall funded by Public Health England, which allows thee campaign to produce a number of national campaigns each year, but support from the community is needed to help local people to stop smoking. The ‘SmokeFree’ campaign also have an online page that you can sign up to, which allows them to receive emails and tips from Public Health England to help stop smoking.

In this modern day E- cigarettes were recently introduced, which are inspired by Hilbert A. Gilberts design in the 1960’s. These are electronic devices that simulate the experience of smoking tobacco and the user can choose wether they want the substance being

inhaled and exhaled to contain tobacco or not. These devices were originally made for people who want to quit smoking and have proved to be very effective as many people start using them with tobacco in them and then they switch to the substance that has 0% tobacco, so therefore means they are not inhaling anything dangerous or harmful.

The increasing price of cigarettes are also persuading people to stop because they simply cannot afford to spend money on them, the government are soon introducing a new scheme where only a 20 packet of cigarettes will be sold, so therefore will stop people smoking because they wont be able to afford it. The average US citizen spent $1500 - $3000 last year on cigarettes, which is a massive amount of money gone on something that is extremely harmful to their bodies. Smoking cost the US $330 billion per year in healthcare expenses every year.

Overall quitting smoking is being prompted every single day in the media and other traditional advertising methods and is helping most smokers to stop, so therefore this will continue into the future.