Cigarette Smoking: Activities To Control It

It is a well-known fact that cigarette smoking is a very dangerous habit; cigarettes have been known to cut smokers' lives by many years by increasing their risk of cancer and heart disease. Cigarette smoke is also dangerous to the people who inhale secondhand smoke. The problem is being made even worse by the fact that many people start smoking right from their teenage years. These people subject themselves to toxic substances on a daily basis over many years.
What is clear is that the government has a very important role to play in controlling the sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products; however it does not seem to be doing enough to control this problem. The fact that huge cigarette companies spend a great deal of money on defeating various anti-tobacco legislation perhaps has a role to play in this fact. Certain activities are very effective at controlling the demand for these dangerous products.

1. Increase taxes: The number of people who buy cigarettes will come down in response to increased taxes. What is really interesting is that the biggest impact will be on young people because they are the most price conscious crowd of our population. The other benefit is that government will be able to generate a large amount of revenues in this manner.


2. Control access to cigarettes: Cigarettes and other tobacco products should not be easily available, especially to young smokers. If smokers have to take extra trouble to get their pack of cigarettes then it is likely that they will not pick up the habit as easily.


3. Make it difficult to use cigarettes: Cigarette smokers should have to think twice before they light up. The way to do this is by restricting areas where people can smoke cigarettes. Many public spaces have restrictions on smoking cigarettes in their premises but these restrictions need to expand to cover larger areas of our society.


4. Spread information about the dangers: People, especially teenagers, need to be told about the dangers of cigarette smoking. This is a very dangerous habit that can have very lethal consequences to smokers as well as people who breathe in secondhand smoke. Lung and oral cancers are very common amongst long-term smokers and so is heart disease. Young people need counseling in order to counter the attractions of smoking (it is perceived as being a cool or sexy thing to do).


5. Make help available to people who want to quit: People who want to stop smoking (this includes the overwhelming majority of smokers) should be given the help they need. This is a highly addictive habit that very few people can get rid of without proper assistance. Counseling, hypnotherapy and nicotine replacement therapies have been found to be very effective to control tobacco use.

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