Tobacco

Tobacco was a big hit when it first came out many years ago. Back then, tobacco companies were able to advertise their products. No one seemed to know the harmful effects that tobacco has on a person's health, societal health, money, and government. Now, so many negative effects of tobacco are known, and the use of tobacco is being greatly discouraged.

Tobacco is so addicting because it contains the chemical nicotine. Short-term effects include an increase in heart rate, blood pressure, and the flow of blood from the heart. Arteries narrow, and the amount of oxygen in demand to the amount of oxygen present is not equal. People experience shortness of breath or difficulty breathing. Smoking also causes a person to have a change in their appetite. The tar from the tobacco will start its build-up within the lungs. Your hair, breath, and clothes begin to smell. Teeth start getting black specks. Even just using tobacco for a short period of time causes damage to a person's personal health.

Tobacco's long-term effects include: tobacco will not only eventually cause lung cancer, but it can cause cancer of the mouth, nose, voice box, throat, bladder, somach, kidney, liver, pancreas, esophagus, uterine cervix, and acute myeloid leukemia. People that do not smoke but are around those who do may suffer health problems from the secondhand smoke. Nearly 3,000 non-smoking adults die from lung cancer every year because of the secondhand smoke. Soon, the smoker's lungs are black from the tar, and the suffer from respiratory diseases like bronchitis or emphysema. Your brain can be effected from using tobacco. Blood could clot and cause a stroke; fat deposits develop in arteries around the heart and cause a heart attack. Don't forget the changes in appearance that occur also. Teeth become tinged yellow, a smoker's face could become gaunt looking, and it seems as though you permanently reek of the smoke that comes with tobacco. There are many more effects from tobacco that result from long-term use.

Tobacco users' societal health will also suffer. When an individual begins their habits, they are probably hanging around a new crowd of people. Their old friends are probably the ones who frown upon tobacco users and are only thinking for the best of their friend when they try to stop them. Basically, people who do not approve of tobacco use or do not want to risk the chance of becoming addicted themselves or ill from secondhand smoke will begin to alienate themselves from the tobacco users. Tension may occur between a couple or family members because they do not like to see their precious child, mother, father, or spouse killing themselves. Just by beginning to use tobacco, relationships that used to be strong and healthy may no longer be that way or even exist at all.

Smokers do not risk their health just by smoking; they risk their lives because they could end up poverty-stricken. Buying the tobacco is not the only way a person loses money because of tobacco. Insurance for smokers is more expensive, they have to spend more on dry cleaning and teeth cleaning, and they even lose money on the resale value of their homes and vehicles. In the end, smokers do not receive as much in Social Security benefits or in pension. Although money may be tight as it is because you need to buy a pack of cigarettes a day, some workplaces are no longer hiring those who smoke. Some places could even end up firing their employees because they tak too many "smoke breaks." 5% of companies prefer to hire those who do not smoke, and 1% of companies just do not hire smokers at all. If all companies began denying smokers jobs, they would have no choice but to quit smoking or live in poverty. Tobacco products are no where near being cheap, and hopefully in th future, moeny constraints and the lack of jobs for smokers/tobacco users will cause everyone to quit smoking.

Right now, the issue of legalizing drugs is a big debate. People who are for the legalization of drugs are citing the legal use of tobacco as an excuse. Just because tobacco i still legal definitely does not mean the other drugs should be too. Governments also have to keep making and passing new laws regarding tobacco use because of the new evidence found that tobacco has major health problems. To make it easier on themselves, our national government should take a step towards improving the health of its people.

I personally feel that tobacco use should be illegal. Reading about all the health risks and deaths that occur every year because of tobacco use is really astounding. Tobacco use is not bad for just the people who make the conscious decision to use it, but it also harms the people just walking by. Secondhand smoke can be nearly as harmful as mainstream smoke, and no passing individual asked the smoker to blow a puff of cigarette smoke in their face. I have also had personal experience with losing people to tobacco use. My grandpa suffered a stroke, most likely from all the tobacco he used. Keeping tobacco use legal just seems to be an extra hassle for government officials who have to consider new laws to please the non-smoking public. When our economy is so horrible, I think there are better ways a person can spend their money. Buying tobacco has to be the biggest waste of $5-ish/pack I have ever heard of. If you bought a pack a day, it would cost $1,825/year plus the tax on each pack!! I just know that even if tobacco remains legal for the rest of my life, I will never use any form of tobacco.

http://www.drugfree.org/Portal/drug_guide/Tobacco
http://www.cancer.org/docroot/PED/content/PED_10_2x_Tobacco-Related_Cancers_Fact_Sheet.asp?sitearea=PED
http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/health_effects/respiratory/index.htm
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Insurance/InsureYourHealth/HighCostOfSmoking.aspx
http://www.con-suming.com/Tobacco/should_tobacco_be_legal.htm
http://consumerissues.cas.psu.edu/PDFs/TobaccoCostsAdult.pdf

Too Young to be a Dad

In this generation, there are many reasons to why people feel pressure to have sex. For boys, the pressure mainly comes from their friends. It seems to me that guys have a tough guy persona around their friends. Sometimes, these guys will do anything to keep that persona and impress their friends, even if it means having sex. If a teen boys has an older brother, he may hear and see his brother talking about or acting as if sex is what the older kids do ll the time. This puts the idea in the younger brother's mind that if my big brother is doing, then I should be doing it, too.

For girls, I think the pressure to have sex comes from their partner. To the boys, sex may not be as big of a deal as it is to girls. Girls tend to be more emotional and think of things differently. They most likely think of their first time as being something special with the person they love. But boys just want to impress their friends or prove they are as smooth with the ladies as they brag to be. Also, some girls have friends that pressure them into having sex. Usually though, girls have supportive friends that do not force them into a situation, yet instead, they help her choose the right decisions.

Also, the media plays a huge role in teens' lives. Nowadays, everyone seems to watch TV in their spare time or browse the internet. In movies, TV shows, and ads on the side bars of some websites, sex is being promoted or shown as a casual and harmless activity. This reference makes teens believe it is okay and safe, nothing to be worried about. Shows like Gossip Girl or The O.C. show the characters having sex with a friend and then meeting up with a different guy/girl that same night. The media, unfortunately, has an immense influence over teens.

Drugs and alcohol also play a huge role in teens' decisions to have sex. When under the influence, inhibitions are lost, meaning normal standards and limits no longer exist. So if someone were to advance on you at a party, you think nothing of partaking in sexual activities you normally wouldn't. People are cruel enough to take advantage of others that are clearly intoxicated and have no sense of judgement. That's when people have sex and the results could be an unplanned pregnancy. Other times, people purposefully put drugs or slip alcohol into another person's drink to get them high or drunk. Drinking or using drugs seriously handicapps your ability to make clear and sound decisions. Both boys and girls could be pressured to drink or do drugs by their friends. As a result, any of the things listed above could follow.

I think the GREAT Decision Making Model is better than the thinking/acting=deciding method. This method seems as if a person would just let someone take control of them because they are taking the passive approach. If you let people trample all over you, you could be forced to take part in sexual activity you don't want to, which could reslt in pregnancy. If you let chance and fate decide what happens to you, you might not get the end results you want. Even if you choose to have sex actively, did you really think through all of the consequences that would result from this decision? The GREAT Decision Making Model is truly the best because you have to stop, think every possible choice through, pick one, and reflect on your decision later. By using this method, you are consciously accepting the consequences that come with each action and thinking about it after it has occurred. I make decisions using the GREAT Decision Making Model, even if I do not think of each step before making the deicisions. I have to think of all my choices and the results of each before I can decide what is best. Otherwise, I think I would end up regreting a decision I make or wonder why I didn't pick another choice. The GREAT Decision Making Model gives me reasons to why I picked the choice I did. Unless you stand up for yourself and think all your choices through, the best possible deicisions cannot be made.

Legalizing Drugs

Personally, I think the topic of drugs is a major problem in the US. People are concerned about how they are getting it into the US and whether or not it should be legal. To me, I see benefits in using these drugs. They were first introduced to the US during wars when they were used to ease the pain of soldiers. The sad part was, no one knew how addicting the drugs could be. But they also seemed to do a good job of erasing the soldiers' pain. If the drugs were being used for medical purposes and it is known that the drugs can improve a person's survival rate or cure some diseases, I think they should be legal for that kind of use.

I know that in California, it is legal for cancer patients as well as others to go a vending machine containing Marinol, the legal form of marijuana. Marinol is not actually the kind of marijuana you buy on a street corner and smoke; it is a prescription drug formed by the isolated and active ingredient, THC, of marijuana. Now, you may be asking yourself, well doesn't that mean anyone can go and get ahold of marijuana? Actually, the patient must scan an ID, and the patients are limited to certain doses of marijuana each week. But what if the patients do find a way to abuse the drugs?

In reality, the legalized marijuana in CA is used for the following illnesses...
40% Chronic Pain
22% AIDS-Related
15% Mood Disorders
(23% All other categories).

I personally think that making drugs in general legal only causes more problems. New laws and legislations will create more gray areas. If it is illegal now, isn't that saying something? Why should it all of a suddenly be legal? Even if we said people under twenty-one years of age are not allowed to buy it, they will still be able to use their fake IDs for alcohol and drugs. Now, not only will drinking and driving be a problem, we have to worry more about driving under the influence. Right now in its illegal stage, not many people abuse the drug everyday meaning there aren't that many people while driving under the influence. Yet, if we made the drugs legal, more people will be saying, "Oh, they are selling it so it must be okay to smoke/inhale/inject this and drive or operate machinery." In reality, drugs pose serious dangers, both short-term and long-term. That's kind of why these drugs are illegal in the US. Just because Europe is a little more flexible with drug use, does not mean we have to be like them.

Also, the fear of increase in violence and crime would come with the legialization of drug use. Like we learned in class, drug use causes a person to lose their judgement and inhibitions. They begin to lie and change who they are because of the drugs. Drug users no longer care about what they used to do, and they become people they are not. "Six times as many homicides are committed by people under the influence of drugs, as by those who are looking for money to buy drugs." It is hard to believe, but it is true. Think of how many more homicides would occur if people were able to just go to the tobacco shop and buy some coke or weed.

We cannot give up our fight against drug use!! In the past twenty years, the use of drugs has gone down by a third! The use of cocaine has gone down by a good 70%!! We should not just abandon our efforts and successes now! We need to take the 95% of Americans who do not use drugs and make it 100% of Americans who do not use drugs. I understand that Marinol, the safe and legal 'marijuana,' is helpful for patients suffering from illnesses, but that is most definitely not the same thing as the illegal version of marijuana we are worried about. I personally don't see a problem in people using Marinol as long as doctors still prescribe it and it is used for serious cases. If we made drug use legal, the drug dealers of the US, Mexico, Colombia, South America, and everywhere else will become even more powerful than they already are. Drugs are illegal for a reason, and we should keep it that way.

http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/demand/speakout/index.html
http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/ongoing/calimarijuana.html