Why is smoking a controversial issue?

Answer 1

Because it highlights questions around personal responsibility and freedom, and the role of the state in protecting us (or 'controlling' us, if you take a line different than my own).

We (in the form of the government - it's our representative body, in the end) restrict substances that might be harmful to vulnerable people, or which are harmful in themselves, to protect all of us.

The assumption/beliefs created by tobacco companies and smoker's rights groups are that 1) smokers do so willingly, that they started on their own accord, and can stop when they want

2) smokers are fully aware of the possible consequences, and accept a level of risk when smoking ("it's my life, i can do what i want")

AND SO may be understood to be reasonable human beings, capable of informed decision-making, etc.

1) is a minefield - I for example was 13 when I started, too young, I'd argue, to be free of peer pressures (known impact on developmental stage), etc. Also - nicotine is known to be more addictive to heroin, so it's just not true that people can stop at any time. Further, many smokers actually don't want to smoke.

2) is something else. Most people accept the logical possibililty that they might be stricken by cancer. But psychological tendencies we all have mean that we're unlikely to associate that fate with our own lives.

Also - how informed a decision is it, when we 'decide to smoke' (if we do in the case of smoking, and I DOUBT IT VERY MUCH), if we're working off statistics, and not knowledge of our own personal likelihood of risk? Do 15 year olds use family medical histories as the basis for their decisions???

The larger question is, how prepared are you to accept the state as a body that can make decisions on your behalf?

It's difficult when people knowingly make decisions that are bad for them - like smoking, or for a more drastic example, that German guy who asked a cannibal to eat him.

Can we say smokers and that German guy are addicted (or crazy) and need our protection?

Can we accept that their bodies belong to them ultimately, and that they're not crazy/addicted? What about suicide - can we accept that?

Arguing from the larger question, it's hard for me as an agnostic to say why I think it's fundamentally, morally wrong that that guy wanted his penis fed to him by a cannibal. Working on that.

But in the case I think there's evidence that smokers are not as 'reasonable' as they wish they were, because

- they were not informed of all the risks personal to them when they started smoking
-more often than not, they were in stages of development that made reasoned decisions highly improbable

Answer 2

Whenever you go to the doctors nowadays one of the first questions they ask is do you smoke. Then whatever is wrong with you they put down to smoking. I think it is generally accepted that smoking is not good for you but to say that it puts a strain on the NHS is not correct. The money received from the taxation on cigarettes far outweighs the cost to the NHS of treating people who smoke. Ever since probably the death of Roy Castle there has been a great anti smoking movement and in particular the effect of secondary smoking. I can well appreciate people not wanting to be around people who smoke especially if it is in the work place or in a restaurant but the anti smoking brigade will not rest until it is banned absolutely anywhere. If I walk down a high street the fumes coming from buses lorries and the like probably cause me more harm than a cigarette and also cause your clothers to smell. Nothing is done about this. You need a balance not one side calling all the shots. We have choices in this life and some smoke some do not. Provided consideration is given to other people I really cannot see what all of the fuss is about.

Answer 3

When an object is considered "injurious to health" and, everyone is "doing it" it's going to bring up controversy. I smoked for 47 years and saw nothing wrong with it, until I had a major heart attack and I had to have six bypasses due to arteries damaged by smoking, among other things.
I was always having asthma attacks, emphysema problems, I was living on an inhaler. Since I've quit some years ago, I haven't had the same heath problems.

So, I guess it's a matter of what you believe. It's your health.

Answer 4

It raises problems because it has become a class thing. As middle class and professional men stopped smoking from the 1970's onwards, the cigarette companies started to target working class women. So efforts to curb public smoking are seen by many of the working class as their 'betters' getting at them once again. There exists a terrible e-mail which circulated within the Marlboro company in the USA about 30 years ago which stated that their main customers were: "The young, the black, the poor, and the stupid." This, as you can imagine, caused dreadful ructions.

Answer 5

The controversy is that unfortunately some misguided people think that it is within their human rights to smoke whenever and wherever they like , irrespective of who else it affects. It is they who are making the fuss over being stopped from smoking in public areas where others had to put up with their anti social not to mention unhealthy habit - it was those who had to work in that area and who had no choice but to breathe in the smoke who are now free - ( and they could have sued their employers for not taking into account their unhealthy working conditions) .

Answer 6

Because you have people who want to smoke and other people who do not want those people smoking. Courtesy for both would make this problem less of a controversy.

Answer 7

Apart from the recent changes where smoking is now banned in public/social places, and the rights of people to choose to smoke, smoking-related diseases are putting extra strain and costs on the NHS, both hospital and community care, to provide care for people who have smoking-related diseases, because this sector of society has developed their disease through their own choice to smoke whilst knowing that the consequences of their actions will lead to diseases and conditions that could have been avoided.

Answer 8

You tell me!

I would say that now that I have stopped smoking for about two years now, I do understand the things that non-smokers go on about, but I also do understand smokers and their struggles.

It is every person's right if he or she wants to smoke, but keep in mind the people around you that do not smoke and if you do not smoke, keep in mind that a smoker made a choice and you have to respect it.

Answer 9

Because a load of bullies, busybodies and do-gooders think it their business to magnify the (admittedly) actual health-risks of smoking out of all sensible proportion. If you smoke it does not mean you will contract a disagreeable and fatal complaint, it is just that you might.

Answer 10

Because although Governments know how addictive and fatal it is, they do not make it illegal....unlike other addictive drugs. The reason is that the Governments make a LOT of money from the tax they earn on ciggarettes sold.