Smoking in public is one of the major menaces in our society today. It creates a wrong impression to children about smoking, which gets harder to scrap away each time they witness someone doing it. It also causes other problems in children, which gradually develop them into societal misfits, rejects, and nuisances. Prohibiting smoking in public will lower the physical, visual and passive smoking contact on children hence greatly bringing down the number of smoking addicts in the future generations.
There have been debates in various parts of the world, to do away with smoking in public. In fact, several cities have already implemented that stand. The impact causes on children is always a concern on the forefront of such decisions. Children tend to adopt things that the societies seem to embrace openly. These things form a critical part of the blueprints of the children’s lifestyles. This means that a child who often sees people smoking in the broad daylight is likely to take after them as far as character is concerned. This is unfair to the child since they are yet to know the repercussions of smoking.
Smoking in public causes passive smoking in children. In as much as the smoker does not necessarily intend to affect the children, most of them still suffer from passive smoking. This exposes them to involuntary consumption of nicotine and other drug substances, which gradually turns them into addicts despite their innocence. Marcovitz (84) argues that the guilt of a passive smoker addict should be counted on the active smoker. It is indeed unfair and irrational if a ‘sick’ addict can freely infect a sober child with his addiction.
Smokers who contract lung and airborne diseases can easily transmit these diseases to children. Ray (124) implies that children are the most susceptible to airborne infections, lung diseases and other infections harbored by public smokers. Those who contract the diseases from smoking can transmit them to any other person, even when the latter is not smoking. This is very risky since diseases are not identifiable by the naked eye. Furthermore, the poor kids are usually unsuspecting of any danger at most times, only to unknowingly be infected. Room (47) says that most of those diseases could end up wasting the children’s lives for good.
Public smokers deteriorate the environmental conditions. Smokers often throw the remnants of their cigarettes away in the streets. According to (Owing 51)’s research, 80% of cigarette smokers do not throw the remains in a litter bin. This compromises hygiene and cleanliness of the environment. During smoking, public smokers also generally pollute the air due to the gases and substances their drugs produce when burnt. An ugly image of irresponsible behavior is imprinted on the children who witness these précises Somehow they too will tend not to maintain the environment. After all, adults do not seem to be doing the same. All this is because of public smoking. As Marcovitz (88) argues, shall you blame a child for playing where an adult has demolished?
Smoking in public causes conflicts occasionally. According to (Owing 102), smokers tend to propagate conflict at a higher rate than people usually imagine. For instance, a non-smoker and a smoker disagree on how the public smoker is recklessly smoking. This also demonstrates a bad example of the society whenever such a thing happens in public and in the presence of children. Therefore, the kids grow up having in mind that in society it is normal to put up a fight against one another. Ray (77) claims that tobacco smoke is an act of destruction; whether smoked or stood for.
On the other hand, I respect each smoker’s choice to take that path of life (even though I have a different view than most of him or her do.) Smoking in public could do in well-organized areas, where there are reserved locations for that particular purpose. Additionally, Room (388) infers that smoking zones have aided a lot in the prevention of airborne diseases, which would otherwise have been transmitted to random people. Children would then see a sense of an organized society and actually realize that smoking is not for everyone. (Slovic 94) says that an organized smoker cannot originate from a disorganized society.
In summary, there is a great need to ban public smoking especially in areas where there are children. Having looked at all those negative effects it has on children and reasons why be brought on board, it is evident that there is a great and urgent need for us to save our children by eliminating this vice from our society. In conclusion, it is imperative for governments to prioritize this matter and use the best means possible to do away with this villainy. That will go a long way to help raise a sober generation.
Works Cited
Marcovitz, Hail. "Should smoking be banned?" Reference Point (2015): 119-121. Web. 14 Mar. 2018.
Owing, H. Trends in smoking and health research. Nora Science Publishers, 2005. Web. 14 Mar. 2018.
Ray, Loddenkemper. "The Tobacco Epidemic" Karger 30.4 (2015): 27-58. Web. 14 Mar. 2018.
Room, William. "Environmental policy and public health" World Developers (2000): 20-89. Web. 14 Mar. 2018
Slovic, Paul. Smoking risk, perception and policy. New York: Farmington hills, 2016 .
Web. 14 Mar. 2018.
