Assignment 01

Submitted to : Iftekhar Mahfuz

Course Code : BUS360
Section : 06
Submitted by : Mushfiqur Rahman
ID # 1830858
Should all sorts of tobacco products be banned by law?Why or why
not?
Tobacco and carcinogens that come along with the product can lead to many health problems
in the future. Tobacco companies have always defended their promotions by claiming that
advertising serves only to encourage adults smokers to switch or try new brands. Along with
these life threatning diseases,tobacco use can also lead to Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary
Disease (COPD) , high blood pressure and premature heart attacks.
In Bangladesh , tobacco usage accounts for 161,000 deaths yearly and afflicts a few hundred
thousand people with critical illnesses and diseases, according to different organizations. The
demand for banning tobacco products is rising in Bangladesh as smokers remain more
vulnerable and face more complications.
In Bangladesh , the demand for tobacco ban was first raised by 20 anti-tobacco organizations,
who demanded a temporary ban on the production,distribution and sales of tobacco during the
Covid-19 crisis. The alliance claimed India,Philipines,South Africa and Boswana already banned
tobacco as part of the fight against Covid-19 and demanded the ban in Bangladesh as tobacco
use increase the possibilities of getting infected by coronavirus. The cigarette is the deadliest
artefact in the history of human civilization. Most of the developed countries of the globe ,
however are making progress in reducing both smoking rates and overall consumption.
Many different methods have been proposed to steepen his downward slope , including
increased taxation , bans on advertisement , promotion of cessation and expansion of smoke-
free spaces. One option that deserves more attention is the entactment of local or national
bans on the sale of cigarettes. There are precedents : 15 US states entacted bans on the sale of
cigarettes from 1890 to 1927, for instance , and such laws are still fully within the power of local
communities and state governments . Apart from reducing human suffering , abolishing the sale
of cigarettes would result in savings in the realm of healthcare cost , increased labour
productivity , lessened harms from fires , reduced consumption of scarce physica resources ,
and a smaller global carbon footprint.
Abolition would also put a halt to one of the principal sources of corruption in modern
civilization , and would affectively eliminate one of the historical forces behind global warming
denial and environmental obfuscation. The primary reason for abolition , however is that
smokers themselves dislike the fact they smoke. Smoking is not a recreational drug , and
abolishing cigarettes would therefore enlarge rather than restrict human liberaties. Abolition
would also help cigarette makers fulfill their repeated promises to ‘cease production’ if
cigarettes were ever found to be causing harm.
Cigarettes kill about 6 million people every year, a number that will grow before it shrinks.
Smoking in the twentieth century killed only 100 million people , whereas a billion could perish
in our country unless we reverse course. Even if present rates of consumption drop steadily to
zero by 2100 , we will still have about 300 million tobacco deaths this century. The cigarette is
also a defective product , meaning not just dangerous but unreasonably dangerous , killing half
it’s long-term users. And addictive by design. It is fully within the power of the Food and Drug
Administration in the US, for instance , to require that the nicotine in cigarettes be reduced to
subcompensable , subaddictive levels.
Cigarettes are also defective because they have been engineered to produce an inhalable
smoke. Tobacco smoke was rarely inhaled prior to the ninetieth century. Death and product
defect are two reasons to abolish the sale of cigarettes , but there are others. A third is the
financial burden on public and private treasuries, principally from the costs of treating illnesses
due to smoking. Cigarette use also results in financial losses from diminished labor productivity ,
and in many parts of the world makes the poor even poorer.
Cigarettes are also a significant cause of harm to the natural environment . Cigarette
manufacturing consumes scarce resources in growing , curing , rolling , flavouring , packaging ,
transport , advertising and legal defence , but also causes harms from massive pesticide use and
deforestation. Cigarette manufacturing also produces non-trivial greenhouse gas emissions ,
principally from the fossil fuels used for curing and transport. Cigarettes are not sustainable in a
world of global warming ; indeed they are one of it’s overlooked and easily preventable causes.
The fourth and most important reason for abolition is the fact that smokers themselves do not
like their habit. This is the key point ; smoking is not a recreational drug , most smokers do not
like the fact they smoke and wish they could quit. This means that cigarettes re very different
from alcohol or even marijuana. Only about 10% – 15% of people who drink liquor ever become
alcoholics , versus addiction rates of 80% or 90% for people who smoke. An influencial Canadian
tobacco executive once confessed : smoking is not like drinking , it is rather like being an
alcoholic.
Currently, a cigarette manufacturing machine can use up to 3.7 miles of paper an hour. Tobacco
crop uses additional important nutrients than many other harvests, degrading the soil. Probably
the most influence of a cigarette on the environment is the making of them. The land used to
grow tobacco crops could be put to healthier use by planting more trees or food production.
Huge quantities of pesticides, fertilizer and herbicides are used on tobacco crops. Cigarette
butts also do a lot of damage as actually they are often made from a form of plastic. The
polymer acetate filters consist of thousands of strands that can take up to 15-25 years to
dissolve. The dregs from tobacco in the butts also discharge pollutants into the atmosphere.
Trillions of butts are discarded each year. These cigarette butts then make their way inside the
stomachs of birds and fishes. It is awful to know that some of the fishes that we have consumed
may have been tainted by cigarette butts.
Children are at great danger from cigarette smoking. Those children whose Parents smokes
regularly are susceptible to this poison, every day. Young kids that are still growing can be
especially vulnerable to the bad effects of cigarette smoke. Children can also without difficulty
become hooked when they live in the home with a smoker.Children that are wide open to
cigarette smoke before they are even born can have many problems right away. Pregnant
women, who smoke cigarettes, put their newborn babies at danger for prematurity and low
birth weight. Pregnant women smoking during and after pregnancy are at risk of Sudden Infant
Death Syndrome. Smoking can expose a baby to harmful substances like nicotine, carbon
monoxide and tar. Children with smoking parents are often ignorant of the concerns until they
start school and learn about the dangers.The recent laws forbid smoking in the car with
children. This is a gigantic step towards shielding children from grown-ups with bad habits.
Children that are open to cigarette smoke at an early stage in their life, often suffer from
respiratory problems. This can include chronic disease like asthma. The pollutants from smoke
settle down into the hair, clothes, and furniture of smokers. Even if a smoker selects to smoke
only outside and away from children, the toxins from the cigarettes still make their way to
children in the home.
Smoking is a nauseating habit that puts people’s lives at risk. The health concerns have been
identified for many years, yet the habit-forming nature of cigarettes has stayed put. It may
benefit to ban cigarettes since some people do not have the willpower to fight the problem on
their own. A ban holds people responsible for their actions when it comes to illegal substances.
Nicotine may not damage cognitive skills in the same way that drugs and alcohol do. However,
they do affect vast long-term health matters. Smokers also suffer publicly, socially and not just
physically. Cigarette smoking culminates to governing the lives of those who become addicted.
Many residential complexes do not want smokers, as the cleaning is difficult when they move
out. It is very difficult to totally eliminate the smell as the smell penetrates the walls and
carpets deeply.Unfortunately, smokers are at danger of losing their lives from huge health
concerns. Smaller illnesses, like asthma, can also be challenging on the person. Lung cancer is
often terminal and can lead to a heart-breaking loss for family and friends. Many people may
try to support smoker mend, without any positive result. A ban on smoking may assist to curb
pollution, keep children safe and healthy, and leave fewer people lonely. Any kind of addiction
can inflict destruction in the lives of the addicts and those close to them.

Cigarettes are not only destructive to the smoker, but everyone around. Second hand smoke is
the non-filtered smoke from the end of people’s cigarettes. Smoke may carry more than over
7,000 different chemicals all different from one of another, hundreds of those chemicals are
toxic and as much as 70 (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2013) are known to cause
cancer. Since second hand smoke is an epidemic across the world there are many ways it can
affect a person’s wellbeing. Second hand smoke can and may cause heart disease, lung cancer,
SIDS and many others. Second hand smoke is committed when the adult or child is near the
smoker; smoke then travels from the end of the cigarette or the breath of the person in a space
of 20 feet and enters the victim.
Researchers estimate that these tobacco control efforts are associated with averting an
estimated 8 million premature deaths and extending the average life expectancy of men by 2.3
years and of women by 1.6 years. But there is a long way yet to go: roughly 5.6 million
adolescents under age 18 are expected to die prematurely as a result of an illness related to
smoking. Prevention can take the form of policy-level measures, such as increased taxation of
tobacco products; stricter laws (and enforcement of laws) regulating who can purchase tobacco
products; how and where they can be purchased; where and when they can be used (i.e.,
smoke-free policies in restaurants, bars, and other public places); and restrictions on
advertising and mandatory health warnings on packages. Over 100 studies have shown that
higher taxes on cigarettes, for example, produce significant reductions in smoking, especially
among youth and lower-income individuals. Smoke-free workplace laws and restrictions on
advertising have also shown benefits.
Cigarette butts comprise 30%-40% of items collected in annual coastal/urban cleanups.
4,211,962 cigarette butts were collected on beaches and waterways globally in 2019, making
them the world’s second most common type of litter after food wrappers. Cigarette filters are
made from cellulose acetate, a plastic which only degrades under severe biological
circumstances, such as when filters collect in sewage. In practice, cigarette butts tossed on
streets and beaches do not biodegrade.

 Under optimal conditions, it can take at least nine months for a cigarette butt to
degrade.
 The sun may break cigarette butts down, but only into smaller pieces of waste which
dilute into water/soil.
Growing concerns over the impact of tobacco waste on the environment, as well as the
substantial costs of cleanup, have prompted states, municipalities and institutions to enact a
variety of policy actions. For example, 317 municipalities prohibited smoking on beaches and
1,531 prohibited smoking in parks as of October 2017.

Land , Coastal and Water pollution :

 Cigarette butts cause pollution by being carried, as runoff, to drains and from there to
rivers, beaches and oceans.
 Preliminary studies show that organic compounds (such as nicotine, pesticide residues
and metal) seep from cigarette butts into aquatic ecosystems, becoming acutely toxic to
fish and microorganisms.
 In one laboratory study, the chemicals that leached from a single cigarette butt (soaked
for 24 hours in a liter of water) released enough toxins to kill 50 percent of the saltwater
and freshwater fish exposed to it for 96 hours.
 Another laboratory study found that cigarette butts can be a source for heavy metal
contamination in water, which may harm local organisms.
  A study of the effects of roadside waste on soil found that patterns of hydrocarbon
levels in the soil were similar to those of littered cigarette butts. This indicates that the
chemicals in the soil had seeped out of cigarette butts. Some hydrocarbons are
carcinogenic.

All in all, one of the reasons why so many people find it difficult to give up smoking and don’t
like the idea of banning it is that they truly believe that this habit can help them. They hope to
find the help they need to cope with different problems with life. What are the other reasons
why so many people find smoking so appealing? They believe their habit bonds them with the
other smokers. They like the feeling of creating a special ritual that, in turn, brings momentary
satisfaction. No matter how appealing this fake feeling is, let’s face the truth – banning tobacco
is the right step to take to not only make our environment a better place to live but to also save
people’s lives all over the world.