When you think of smoking, what do you see? A hot chick with blonde hair, smoking a Virginia Slim, making it look so cool? Well what she doesn't know is that every time she inhales, her risk for lung cancer and heart attacks goes up. The smoke she exhales is so dangerous that her friend next to her is at the same risk she is. Smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, and the effects of second hand smoke can kill a person. .
Knowledge about the dangers of cigarettes has been known for years, and the effect of second hand smoke has been most recently discovered. Smoking causes many controversies because of freedom of choice. It is believed by many people that smoking shouldn't be aloud in public places due to the harshness of second hand smoke. There are two kinds of second hand smoke, mainstream which is the smoke exhaled from a person, and side stream smoke which is the smoke from the end of a lit cigarette. (www.cancerwise.org). Smokers say that the smoke wont hurt anyone, if they only knew. .
"When calling attention to public health problems, we must not misuse the word 'epidemic' but there is no other word to describe the 600% increase since 1950 in woman's death rates for lung cancer, a disease primarily caused by smoking" Dr. Satcher (U.S. Surgeon General) on tobacco and cancer. (www.cancerwise.org). What Dr. Satcher is talking about is how much the rate for the number of women smoking in the 1950s and the year 2004. It was estimated that in the year 2002 154,000 Americans would die from lung cancer. (www.smokinglungs.com). "If we eliminated tobacco use today, we would see one-third of all cancers disappear, the real tragedy is that women are dying of a disease that can be prevented" Dr. Gritz. (www.cancerwise.org). She is talking about how lung cancer is a disease that can be prevented by eliminating the usage of tobacco. Over 80% of all lung cancer deaths, are caused from smoking. (www.ash.org).