If an oven in a household malfunctions, catches the house on fire, and kills the people that live there, that oven gets banned. All production for that oven is stopped and the ones that have been sold are recalled. Why does this same concept not apply to cigarettes? Even people that understand the effects of smoking, still buy them.  

Smoking cigarettes is a common habit in the American culture. It is estimated that forty million adults engage in cigarette usage. This is a huge market for business, and continues to grow each year. Along with cigarettes come the loss of life and disease. For every five deaths in America each year, one of them will be cigarette related. This is an absurd number of people dying to something we can stop. Smoking isn't some random disease that we can contract and have no cure for. It is preventable, and we as American's sit and watch half a million people die each year. 

 Smoking today is still legal because we are afraid of repeating the past. During the prohibition of alcohol, crime rates skyrocketed. Black markets were created, mafia's rose and just created an ugly picture. Putting a ban on smoking won't solve any problems right away. Just because the government prohibits the use of the product, that habit will still be there and people will demand it just like the alcohol prohibition. 

It's hard to estimate what would actually happen if a ban on cigarettes sales occurred. Would people riot and recreate what happened years ago or would people turn to the alternatives created today to help people quit smoking. There is also the possibility that tobacco itself isn't banned, but the distribution of cigarettes themselves are because of the harmful effects that are out into them besides tobacco such as tar and carbon monoxide. 

To understand why smoking has become such a big issue, we need to look at its origin. Looking back may be able to help us understand how we can prevent smoking and get people to quit. History plays an important part in cultural traditions for future generations. 

Tobacco usage first dates back to carvings found from the Mayans in 600 through 900 AD. The Native Americans grew tobacco before Europeans landed on the shores. It was primarily used for medicinal and religious purposes (Comprehensive). Once Cristopher Columbus came, the Native Americans gave him dried tobacco leaves as a gift and it was sailed back to Europe where the plant was grown for its believed healing abilities. After a while it became America's number one crash crop which led to modern time's enormous amount of smokers.

The economy really took off when James Bonsack invented a cigarette rolling machine that completely changed the industry (The Bonsack). Before this was invented, they were hand rolled by skilled workers who could make three cigarettes a minute. The machine could do the job of 48 workers. By 1888, all cigarette rollers had been replaced by machines (The Bonsack).

A big boom in the smoking industry was from 1914 through 1918. During this time period occurred World War I. Cigarettes became known as the "soldiers smoke". During World War II, 1939 through 1945, the industry boomed even higher. The solider received millions of free cigarettes during their service and when they came home, there was a whole new line of loyal and addicted customers (Comprehensive).

Once smoking became such a big habit that people used daily, the effects of the cigarette started to get noticed by the government. In 1064, the Surgeon Generals warning was made to be put on every pack of cigarettes sold. This helped get the word out there about the ill effects that smoking has on your body and the possible risks that are involved. The tobacco companies still fought hard to make sure that their product was being advertised and that people weren't discouraged by the warnings. When TVs came out, they became a huge industry and still are today. To help pay for shows, stations ran ads or commercials for people to watch. This was a perfect opportunity for tobacco industries to advertise their products.

However, it wasn't until 1971 that television ads for smoking were banned from being aired (Comprehensive).The same act banned smoking ads from being played on radios, and tobacco industries went back to placing ads in magazines, newspapers, and on billboards (Tobacco). In 2010, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) wanted to enforce a new law where cigarette packs were to have a graphics warning label printed on them.  "GWLs are large prominently placed warnings that use both text and photographic images to depict health risks of smoking" (Graphics). The proposal was turned down because the FDA couldn't establish enough reasoning that the GWLs would decrease the amount of smokers a significant amount. An estimation showed that FDAs proposal would have been expected to drop the amount of smokers by 2.4 through 6.9 million in ten years after the rule took affect (Graphics).

Smoking laws today have come a long way in the aid to prevent people from starting to use tobacco products, reduce the harmful effects of them, and help people quit smoking once they have started (laws). The biggest one is the implemented smoke-free air laws. These laws prevent people from smoking in public places or the workplace so the amount of secondhand smoking will decrease. This law is also in place to help encourage people that smoke to quit because it is inconvenient to have to find somewhere that allows smoking.

Increased tobacco taxes is also another big law to aid in the prevention of smokers. The highest tax rate on cigarettes right now is in New York with a $4.35 tax rate on each pack (K,. and 1). Each state also has the act that Medicaid covers the cost of tobacco treatment from use. This increase the rate of people that quit because they have affordable and access to the people and technology to help them quit (Laws).

Both the laws and taxation have played a big role in reducing the amount of smokers in recent years. Now ads for people to quit smoking are turning up, and causing people to think twice about whether or not they want to continue to be a smoker. Taxes are so high on cigarettes now that some people can't afford them, so they smoke less.

Not only does smoking cause the user health issues, but also the ones around them. This is why smoking in public places such as restaurants and hotels is prohibited. Research was done in India to see how smoking affected the air around people and how polluted it is. Places where smoking occurred had 3.1 times the amount of pollutants in the air than areas where smoking was prohibited (Travers). 

Smoking, like before mentioned, is the number one killer or preventable deaths in the United States. With five hundred thousand people dying each year to a smoking related disease or illness, it is crazy how we still allow the manufacturing of tobacco. Smoking kills more people than human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), illegal drug use, alcohol use, motor vehicle injuries, and fire-arm incidents (health). 

But what exactly causes the cigarette to be that deadly? "Cigarette smoke contains over 4,000 chemicals, including 43 known cancer-causing (carcinogenic) compounds and 400 other toxins" (What's in). Knowing this might explain why deaths in men and women from cigarette smoking have increased oved the past fifty years (health). 

Because nicotine is so addictive, people tend to bypass all the ingredients that are put into cigarettes and continue smoking. If you told someone who had never heard of a cigarette before or anything related to it, and told them every single little detail that there is to know about cigarettes, do you think that they would be excited to pick one up? 

Nicotine doesn't always have to come from a form of tobacco though as there are many alternatives to smoking to aid in the process of people quitting. There are a lot of gimmicks out there though, so being careful of what you use is important. Different products such as nicotine gum and medicine may have other side effects such as nicotine stained teeth. 

Weird strategies to get rid of the urge to smoke include acupuncture, and hypnosis. Needles stuck in your body to rid you of the addiction of falling into a deep sleep and being told to dream about nicotine and cigarettes, having it implanted in your brain to not do it again. With just one year after quitting, the risk of having a heart attack drops sharply. Within two to five years after quitting, your risk for a stroke falls to about the same as a nonsmoker. 

Smoking also can form cancer in a large variety of your body. Some of these include the bladder, blood, cervix, colon, esophagus, kidney, larynx, liver, oropharynx, pancreas, stomach, trachea, bronchus, and lung. If you smoke, cancer increases your risk from dying to cancer and other diseases. If nobody smoke, one out of three cancer deaths would be saved each year. 

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, smoking rates in adults in 1965 was 42.4% and now has decreased to 16.8% (trends). This is an incredible difference and is really showing the effects of smoking education and laws on tobacco. By 2020 it is estimated that only 12% of the adult population will be smoking (trends). With this rate, by 2050 all cigarettes will have vanished and be considered taboo. 

This would be the perfect time for the government to take action and prohibit the sale/consumption of tobacco products such as cigarettes. If we were to ban them today, a riot would break out and cause another alcohol prohibition all over again. It is hard to estimate exactly what would happen and how many people would be involved, but it is believed that a black market would appear. The government would have no control over the market, what they sell and at what price. 

Drug lords for tobacco would rise and control the market, making it hard for lower people to try and sell their products essentially forming a monopoly. This makes the four million citizens that smoke right now federal criminals and can be charged as such for containing more than .1 grams of tobacco. They will be booked and sent to jail for something that they cannot quit because drug companies today make the product so highly addictive that they would suffer from serious nicotine withdrawals

I believe that banning cigarettes right now isn't a viable option as it will turn out to be counter-productive. One doesn't simply just quit a habit such as nicotine just because the law tells them they can't have it anymore. However people will still crave nicotine and will desire it even more. These people will go to drastic measures to get some tobacco in their system. This means rape, murder, and even gang violence. 

Right now, having the ban in public places and having the warning on packaging is a huge plus to getting the smoking rate to go down each year. Back in the 1990's, the amount of high school student that smoked was through the roof. With an average of about 34% of student in high school smoking is outrageous (trends). Today though, I personally don't remember anybody smoking at my school and from what I've heard it wasn't just at my school. 

The amount of adults who smoke each year is going down drastically and in turn isn't giving the younger generation a motive to smoke. Smoking education has come a long way and now schools are teaching young students the effects of smoking early on to show them what would happen if they smoked for an elongated amount of time. I still remember videos of a non-smokers lung and a smoker's lung being compared together and it was not a pretty sight. 

We can only guess what would happen if cigarettes are banned. Since only 16% of the adult population today smokes, which may not be enough to cause people to go into a riot and create another event such as what happened with the alcohol prohibition. Instead of this happening the may go into alternatives such as electronic cigarettes which have hit the market in a storm. 

Electronic cigarettes give users the feeling of smoking a cigarette and giving them a dose of nicotine to help aid in the addiction. E-cigs haven't been fully tested yet for harmful effects and the sales have gone down from an expected growth of 114% down to 51% (E-Cigarettes). This isn't very good for the business but if we saw a cigarette ban today their business may boom again and we never have to worry about people going against the ban. 

This wouldn't be the smartest decision ever though since it is a rick taking route. If another instance such as the alcohol prohibition were to occur it would cost the United States millions, maybe even billions of dollars in taxes and loss of income. The risk versus reward isn't that best considering that the smoking industry is already deteriorating. 

Five hundred thousand people die each year to a little rolled piece of paper. Smoking cigarettes is the leading cause of preventable deaths in America. Although smoking rates have deceased, the American public just has to wait while some suffer to be able to cure this land of cigarettes. 

The government has helped tremendously in the past fifty years to help reduce the amount of smoking there is in the United States. Creating education programs that teach the youth about what cigarettes do to your body and how it reacts is vital to reducing the amount of people dying each year. The amount of adults who smoke also help reduce this number because the youth isn't influenced by their parents or the older generation. 

Cigarette laws have come into play and are preventing people from smoking in public areas such as college campuses, restaurants, hotels, and workplaces. This also helps create a cleaner air for us to breathe because secondhand smoking isn't a threat anymore. These laws also make it hard for people to find somewhere to smoke, making it less convenient to have to carry around a cigarette and try to find somewhere to smoke than to just not bother at all. 

Banning a cigarette today would have a multitude of repercussions that can only be estimated. The risk involved is too high for America's standpoint but in the future, with smoking rates decreasing more and more rapidly each year it may be possible that smoking become a taboo. This would be the optimal time for the government to put a ban on smoking cigarettes. This will help with keeping our air cleaner, and our people healthier.  

