Smoking is bad for everyone

Kayla Wells

Smoking cigarettes hurts not just the person smoking but also everyone who is around them.

According to lungs.org, there are approximately 600 ingredients in cigarettes that, when burned, create more than 7,000 chemicals, at least 69 of which are known to cause cancer.

Another awareness site, smokefree.gov, indicates that smoking harms nearly every organ of the body. While it is common belief that the lungs and the throat are the most affected parts of the body, they are not.

Nicotine from cigarettes is as addictive as heroin in the brain. When the brain stops getting nicotine it is used to, the result is nicotine withdrawals. Smoking cigarettes also raises your blood pressure and puts stress on your heart. Carbon monoxide from inhaled cigarette smoke contributes to a lack of oxygen, which makes the heart work even harder, increasing the risk of heart attacks and heart disease.

Smokers have bigger stomachs and less muscle mass than non-smokers and are more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes even if they don’t smoke every day. Smoking also makes it harder to control diabetes once you have it, and diabetes is a serious disease that can lead to blindness, heart disease, kidney failure, and amputations.

In 2014, I was in class when I received a text from my mom. She told me that she hadn’t talked to my Grandpa in a few days and asked me to go to his house and check on him. I felt something wasn’t right immediately because they talk to each other on the phone almost every day.

I went to his house after school and knocked on the door. I didn’t get a response as I normally would so I banged on the window.

My Grandpa was lying on the floor pretty much motionless and in pain. He told me that had been lying on the floor for a few days as a result of a fall. We really did not know what caused him to fall and hurt himself until we got to the hospital.

My Grandpa has diabetes, so he had an open sore on the bottom of his foot that he could not tend to due to the fall. It ended up getting infected to the point where he had to get half of his leg amputated. If not treated it would have killed him.

We had been telling my grandfather to stop smoking cigarettes for a long time and after this happened it changed his perspective on smoking cigarettes drastically.

Smoking cigarettes contributed to this incident and made it worse because he already had diabetes. My Grandpa is now needs care 24 hours a day and seven days a week, and can no longer live on his own. In addition, he has to live with an amputation that could have been prevented. If you do not want these things to happen to you or someone whom you love, you should not pick up a cigarette.

Other reasons people shouldn’t smoke cigarettes:

  • Cigarette smoke produces a bad smell which makes your breath, clothes, car, and other items stink. The use of cologne or perfume does not always eliminate the smell; it just masks it.
  • Smoking cigarettes creates pollution. People throw their cigarette butts everywhere, which can be harmful to animals.
  • Inhaling the smoke from another person’s cigarette, even if you are not the person smoking, is also harmful. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that second-hand smoke causes approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths and 37,000 heart disease deaths in non-smokers each year.

Please do not smoke cigarettes because it can severely impact your own health as well as the health of others.