Term Paper on "Tobacco vs. Other Drugs"

Term Paper 6 pages (2055 words) Sources: 6 Style: MLA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Tobacco vs. Other Drugs

Nowadays people more and more intensively argue that our present life is significantly different from that of our predecessors, 100 years ago, for example; we hear all the times about the dangers we are continuously exposed to, because of our stressful existence, combined with other harmful factors such as pollution, bad food and, most important of all in my opinion, vices.

Practically, it has become very hard to find a person who is not addicted to something, whether it is about nicotine, alcohol or drugs. These vices have started to be considered as a sort of refuge from the daily problems and only the fear of the dangers one is exposed to makes him weak and susceptible to them. If one is nervous, he or she just has to light up a cigarette and then you would be able to deal with the situation in an appropriate manner. If one is having a bad day or even a bad period in your life, a glass of whisky or a joint would surely improve the situation by giving that person the strength to leave all the troubles behind.

In my opinion, these sorts of affirmation are just lies. That is why I consider that Vladimir Krasicov's definition of vice might be applicable here as well: "It is a separate passion that makes people blind, that hypertrophies it and that usurps the place of the whole, disrupting the normal harmony of different inner necessities and interests."

Therefore, vices are only a bad habit which should be left aside; even though, when you have at least two vices it is hard to give up to all, and that is why the thesis of this essay sustains that tobacco is preferable to drugs and alcohol, since it does not affect a person's judgment and, moreover, it has only long-term side effects, in contrast to alcohol or drugs of which, once you become dependent, you cannot escape and it is very hard to recover, even though it has many times been said that "nicotine is as addictive as heroin, cocaine, or alcohol."

In order to sustain my argument, I would firstly emphasize the great importance the anti-vices, especially anti-tobacco sites have for the people and how should they manage to seek for proper information. Afterwards I would talk about the main dangers a tobacco smoker is exposed to, and I would continue with a series of arguments meant to emphasize that, among all vices, the tobacco smoking is the most preferable one, and in the end I would come up with some statements which, surprisingly enough, would prove that tobacco has some benefic effects as well.

As it might be inferred fro above as well, it has been commonly contended that smoking cigarettes is a bad habit which does not only affect the smokers, but the persons around them as well. Many anti-smoking campaigns have appeared in the recent years, but it seems that they have not registered a great success. This might be caused by, whether people are not interested in quitting smoking or, on the other hand, they have not been properly informed or, even worse, they did not know where to seek for proper information.

In my opinion, the last case seems to be the most oftenly met since, for example, many sites on the Internet do not come up with proper statements and data. On the other hand, there are a lot of sites with anti-smoking slogans and the people might be put in the situation of not knowing which source of information is the most complete. In this case, the proper solution would be the consultation of the sites promoted by the official anti-smoking campaigns, or, on the other hand, of those promoted by the governments of the countries; such attempts from the officials' part exist in almost every country. In the U.S., for example, the Congress has started to adopt anti-smoking policies ever since 1969.

Practically, all these anti-smoking sites promote one main statement: smoking is bad for health, and might be even fatal: the World Health Report in 2002 has concluded that more that 26% of the male deaths and 9% of the women deaths have been produced by smoking. Moreover, "The main health risks in tobacco pertain to diseases of the cardiovascular system, in particular smoking being a major risk factor for a myocardial infarction (heart attack), diseases of the respiratory tract such as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and emphysema, and cancer, particularly lung cancer and cancers of the larynx and mouth. Prior to World War I, lung cancer was considered to be a rare disease, which most physicians would never see during their career. With the postwar rise in popularity of cigarette smoking came a virtual epidemic of lung cancer."

In my opinion, these anti-smoking information campaigns had a serious side-effect as well, allowing the persons addicted to other vices, such as drugs or alcohol, to state that taking drugs or drinking is less injurious for human health than smoking. A concluding example in this sense are the conceptions according to which "Many people think smoking marijuana is just as harmful as smoking tobacco, but this is not true. Those who hold that marijuana is equivalent to tobacco are misinformed. For example, most marijuana smokers smoke the bud, not the leaf, of the plant. The bud contains only 33% as much tar as tobacco. In fact, marijuana is an expectorant." have heard many noises according to which a joint would be less toxic than a cigarette. Still, I do not think that these studies have as well taken into consideration the long-side effects. First of all, marijuana is a drug, a drug that affects one's judgment and causes an immediate dependence. Thus, many persons who consume this drug argue that they do it because it offers them the chance to leave aside this world's boundaries and to dream of all kinds of things. And what is this but an attempt to run away from the current daily problems and issues? Therefore, marijuana, and all the other drugs, is first of all physically harmful, as they give people the false impression that by consuming them they can escape from the reality, with all its mess. Despite this, tobacco does not present such effects: it offers only a five-minutes relaxing time, with a lucid mind. In addition, smoking is an ancestral habit: the same relaxing moments used to be looked for as well by the Indians that smoked the peace pipe.

On the other hand, it might be true that consuming a drug such as marijuana might be less toxic than smoking cigarettes but it should not be omitted that this usually represents only the start: marijuana is the drug with the least side-effects and most of the persons that start to consume it usually go further and start to consume stronger drugs, as they like the state of mind they are given. Thus, the way to cocaine, heroine or other dangerous substances may be only of a few minutes' time. What comes next? "The white death," as there rarely is cases in which people may get rid of the dependency on one of these drugs: it is said that it is stronger than them and their will, and they simply come to accept that their situation is no longer under control and, therefore, it may not be found any solution for it.

Moreover, drugs are not only more dangerous than tobacco: they are much more expensive. Usually, the same persons that consume strong drugs end up in finding themselves in the situation of doing anything for the money they need for drugs: this is why many of the thieves, murderers or prostitutes who have spent a part of their lives in jail may be not totally guilty of the abuses they have committed; it is the drug itself that should be judged. Under these circumstances, how may anybody argue that taking drugs is better than smoking?

It might be argued that an alternative to drugs and smoking might be alcohol; I have heard many opinions according to which consuming alcohol with moderation is not a bad thing, but on the contrary, it has some benefic effects for health. "Moderation" might mean having a drink a day. On the contrary, these statements on alcohol contradict themselves as some scientists sustain that the daily consume of alcohol is the surest way to dependence. This idea is easy to be explained, as under these circumstances "having a drink" becomes a daily habit and at a certain point the human organism may manifest its need of that habit; it is as if it would ask for a right.

In this framework, it is again pretty clear that alcohol addiction is more serious that tobacco addiction. Under the influence of alcohol, some people have the tendency to become violent or behave in an irresponsible and disrespectful manner. Broadly said, there are two types of alcohol effects: the… READ MORE

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