Cigarette Law Reinforced

Have you ever been around someone smoking? Yuck right, well almost half of the world’s children breathe air polluted by tobacco smoke, which worsens asthma and causes dangerous disease. America has a problem with smoking, an estimated 430,000 Americans die each year from the effects of cigarette smoking. But the real problem is not just people smoking but it is when people toss their cigarette buds out their car window.
About 240 million cigarette buds are thrown on the ground a year by the U. S. alone, these buds eventually wash down into streams, lakes, rivers and bays causing massive pollution. This is why there should be a larger penalty for people who are caught throwing cigarette buds on the ground whether it be walking down the street on in a car. An estimated 4. 5 trillion cigarette buds are tossed worldwide which end up in waterways and oceans, leaking traces of how toxic chemicals found in cigarette smoke take 12 years to decompose. By creating a harsher punishment would make people think twice about smoking while inside their cars and blowing it out to the cars beside them.
It has been estimated that half of the world’s children have breathed in second hand smoke from other cars, what would seem like a small amount to you could be very damaging to a developing child’s lungs. Also it could possibly be damaging to adults who are stuck in traffic for hours a day just breathing the toxic air you are polluting which doesn’t affect just the one or two people next to you, the smoke can travel through the air into people’s lungs without you or them even knowing it.

The polluted air that children and adults are breathing in, maybe on a daily bases, has been known to hold over 4,000 chemical compounds, 60 of which are known to cause to cause many diseases. Creating a harsher punishment for cigarette pollution could not only save the world but save people too. Making a stricter law would not only stop people from littering, but it would also benefit the economy. Tobacco companies spend over 4 billion dollars each year on advertising and promotion of their deadly products.
Also smoking costs the nation over $100 billion per year in health care costs and lost productivity, that’s about $398 per American each year. In Washington State there is record of $1. 3 billion dollars spent each year on health care costs associated with caring for people with tobacco related illnesses. This is what is destroying the economy and putting America in a national debt. Last the cost of a pack of cigarettes averages around $4. 50 to $5, including taxes, depending on where you live.
Using the lower number, a pack-a-day smoker burns through about $31.50 per week, or $1,638 per year. That could be used for a house payment or a nice vacation with the family. A 40-year-old who quits smoking and puts the savings into a 401(k) earning 9% a year would have nearly $250,000 by age 70. So making a stricter law would benefit the economy and yourself in expenses. Studies have shown that 50% of a life time smokers die because of diseases from the tar and many other chemicals put into their bodies. Scientists have proven that if you smoke a pack a day, then you die on an average 10 years sooner.
Each cigarette takes 11 minutes off of your life expectancy. All smokers think that by smoking they are only damaging their health. They are ignorant about the fact that their smoking is indirectly affecting others health. And they are one of the direct contributors to the environmental pollution. If people had harsher punishment for littering cigarette buds onto the ground they would realize that smoking isn’t really worth its while after paying off all their fines and maybe even time in jail.
Some people may argue that actually enforcing such a punishment would cost too much money on the government, the police department and the process it would have to go through to actually become a law. But with an estimated 48. 2 million smokers in the U. S. the economy would gain a great deal of money from an estimated 100-700 people who drop their cigarettes on the ground and could be fined for the act of littering. While not only does the pollution from the cigarettes leave a permanent scar on earth it also kills 440,000 people a year and making stricter laws would help this large number of deaths decrease.
Even though it may be pricey for the process of this becoming a law it would benefit the U. S. citizens from death. In conclusion, people should not have to be forced to put their bodies at risk of second hand smoke and the earth should not have to be polluted by people who chose to ruin their lives and others by smoking. By creating a law saying that if one is littering their cigarette anywhere they should have to pay a major fine, depending if it is their first offense or not, or do time in jail. Pollution is a serious problem and needs to be solved quickly before our air becomes permanently damaged.