Persuasive Oral Smoking

Hello, my name is Stephanie and I am here today to voice my opinion on Smoking in Public place and how it should be banned.

Are you tried of seeing cigarette smokers at every public place? Watching people smoking disgusts me, the way they pollute the air with the smoke and flick the ash onto the ground. It is a horrible habit that should be banned.

I fully support a ban on smoking in all public places. The best way to reduce the number of smokers is to help prevent people from starting in the first place. A partial ban for smoking will not work.

While the smokers continue to smoke in public places, the non-smokers continue to show their disgust and repulsion.

The decision to ingest poison can be the free choice of someone, but to force other people to breathe the air poisoned from smoking is a deliberate crime. Hundreds of people who do not even smoke, die each year from smoking-related diseases.

In 2003 there were 15,511 smoking-related deaths in Australia.

In 2006 and 2007, there were 42,356 smoking-related hospital admissions.

In 2004 and 2005, the social costs of tobacco use in Australia were estimated to be $31.5 billion.

I went to this years Benalla festival with some friends but was not able to enjoy the weekend, if you looked up into the sky all you saw was the dreadful smokiness and all the pollution that they seemed not to care about.

The smoke and pollution was causing me to feel so sick I had to leave.

Now, if this is what it did to me, imagine what it is doing to all of the children that were there too, imagine what it is doing to the innocent babies that cannot help but to breathe in this appalling poison, those babies can not tell anyone that they feel sick and people aren’t doing much to help them.

I am for the ban on smoking, because I feel that we should be able to have an enjoyable night with out worrying about people smoking. A smoker’s choice gives me no control over my choice not to smoke.

Despite there being a decline in smoking over the last thirty years in some parts of the population, smoking continues to be seen as a pleasurable personal and social practice by too many.

There is a growing concern about the threat to non-smokers’ passive smoking.

In many public places smokers and non-smokers mix in their recreational and working lives. Restaurants, pubs, offices or factories.

The compulsive smokers forget that while they are trying to protect their rights for smoking, their choices violate the rights of those people who don’t smoke.

It seems that smokers more often neglect the rights of other people. For example, several times I have seen people smoking in bus and train stations, and they didn't care about the fact that their smoking bothers other people.

My friend didn’t choose to acquire a burn to her arm when she walked past a woman on the street, as the woman was engaged in an heated debate with someone and waving her smoldering cigarette around, with no regard for anyone passing by.

New York and California have bans on smoking in public places. Ireland and Norway have introduced countrywide bans.

Estimates of the number of deaths from passive smoking are at 12,000 people a year in the UK.

As a non-smoker I am very aware of people smoking around me. I know that every time I am breathing in second hand smoke it is damaging my lungs.

The ban on smoking is a fantastic opportunity. It’s an opportunity to millions of smokers to give up a dangerous addiction.

It is my belief that banning smoking in public places will add far more business to the eating and drinking enterprises, than it will take away, it will encourage those people who stay home because they don’t want to be poisoned, to go out more often.

‘We’re on the verge of an event of such significance that it will reshape the landscape of the nation’s health. A defining moment that if grasped will forever be remembered for having saved thousands of lives’, a quote I got from a Medical Officer’s speech. Banning smoking in public places is not taking away a group's freedom, it is restoring the freedom of the majority, the freedom to not inhale other peoples' health threatening smoke.

Though everyone has a right to live freely in this world, no one should be allowed to cause harm to another person.

I would never again like to see people smoking in public. Smoking is a very bad habit to form and with a ban on smoking in public places, young people will not be exposed as often and therefore may not be as likely to pick up the horrible habit.

Smoke that is breathed out by a smoker is called mainstream smoke.

The smoke drifting from the burning end of a cigarette is called side stream smoke. Environmental Tobacco Smoke is a combination of mainstream and side stream smoke with each contributing to about half of the smoke generated.

Children in particular are at risk of harmful effects from passive smoking. Impaired learning, slower growth and changes in behavior are linked with children's exposure to passive smoke.

Parents, family and friends who smoke indoors such as cars and homes are the main source of Environmental Tobacco Smoke for children.

The harmful effects on children increase with the number of parents or other household members who smoke. Currently in New South Wales, there is a joint initiative between New South Wales Health, The Cancer Council New South Wales, National Heart foundation, Asthma New South Wales and SIDS New South Wales to make the car and home smoke-free zones.

I know someone who puffed her way throughout her pregnancy.

A pregnancy that lasted a mere six months. Her baby boy was born prematurely and lived for just two hours.

She was told that her smoking had certainly contributed to what had happened.

The guilt that she felt, and still feels, will remain with her for the rest of her life.

Her son never had the chance to make a choice for himself to not ingest poison and it was her choice to smoke that was responsible.

On 1st July 2009, new laws were introduced into New South Wales on Environmental Tobacco Smoke exposure from smoking in the car.

Australian studies indicate that approximately 15 per cent of women smoked during pregnancy in 2009.

Exposure to tobacco smoke during pregnancy can significantly increase the risk of miscarriage, stillbirth, prematurity, low birth weight, childhood malformations and sudden infant death syndrome also know as SIDS.

It has harmful effects on the developing lung and immune system resulting in decreased lung function at birth and increased allergic and asthmatic responses in childhood.

If an adult smokes in a car with a child under 16 years old, this now results in a $250 fine. Every child has the right to grow up in a 'smoke free environment'.

My cousin did not choose to have cigarette ash flicked in her face from an inconsiderate work man, as I walked past his parked car with her in the pram.

What about those parents who don’t give a second thought about the risks to which they are exposing their children?

And I’m not just talking about those selfish women who smoke whilst they are pregnant.

I’m referring to the existing children of parents who smoke.

The children who are being vulnerable to upper respiratory tract infections, asthma, bronchitis, neumonia and ear infections, not to mention the higher risk of SIDS in babies whose parents smoke.

If a person who smokes regularly has a family, then maybe they should look beyond their own, selfish desires and addictions and start considering the effect that they could be having on their most treasured gifts. Their children.

Evidently the most effective way to reduce the effects of passive smoke is to insist on a smoke-free environment. I believe that smoking in public places should not be tolerated. Thousands of lives will be saved. A partial ban for smoking will not work.
Countless of people will be spared the sadness of watching family and friends die early because of smoking related illnesses. The time has come to dramatically change the heath of our society. It is about time that smokers realized non-smokers have rights too.