Tobacco

            
             Tobacco companies are getting away with murder. Nearly 430 000 Americans die each year from smoking related diseases. An estimated 730 000 adolescent smokers will begin each year. (American Lung Association Fact Sheet. Online 1999) That should be an outrage to every American out there. Tobacco laws need to be stricter in this country and advertising of the product should be banned. Two major tobacco companies RJ Reynolds and Philip Morris spend 12 million dollars each day on tobacco advertising. These companies support the popular brands of cigarettes Camel and Marlboro. The two most highly sought after brands by teenage kids today. To say these companies don't have an influence on our adolescents would be absurd. Parents who began smoking 30 years ago on average do not smoke the same brands of cigarettes that kids do today they tend to smoke less advertised brands. In a study done at the Medical College of Georgia in 1998 " showed that as many 6 year old kids could relate The Camel Advertisements to smoking as they could relate Mickey Mouse to Disney". That right there should be enough to concern every parent out there. .
             There are a lot of surprising statistics that make the government and the people sue big tobacco advertisers. Like the fact that tobacco is the only legal product that causes death and disability when used as intended. Cigarettes kill more than 400,000 Americans every year, that's more than AIDS, alcohol, car accidents, murders, suicides, drugs and fires combined. Several studies have found nicotine to be addictive in ways similar to those of heroin, cocaine, and alcohol. Smokers have almost twice the risk of having coronary heart disease as nonsmokers. Smokers' risk of getting lung cancer is approximately 14 times than that of nonsmokers. It has taken many years for tobacco products deadly effects to be scientifically documented but now that it has the results are staggering and something must be done to stop it.