Smoking Satire

For a class I had to make a satire. I did it on smoking.

Today when you walk through parking lots, go driving through town, or outside a store you see people puffing out smoke. About everywhere you look someone is lighting a cigarette, puffing on one, or putting one out. Today about 15 million cigarettes are sold to people each day, which is about 10 million every minute. There are 1.1 billion smokers in the world today, and if current trends continue, that number is expected to increase to 1.6 billion by the year 2025. About 80,000 and 100,000 children worldwide start smoking every day because they watch everyone around them smoking and want to be like them.

I think we can all agree that this is a problem, though about half of smokers think that smoking is not dangerous. They are wrong. Cigarettes cause an estimated 443,000 deaths each year, including approximately 49,000 deaths due to exposure to secondhand smoke. Smoking-related diseases cost the United States more than $150 billion a year.

As more and more people begin smoking, those numbers are only going to get higher. Companies who sell cigarettes have to put warnings on how dangerous their product is, but no one pays them much attention. Cigarette smoke contains over 4,800 chemicals, 69 of which are known to cause cancer. Many people think that they are not going to have any of the bad effects you can get from smoking. That might be true if a person is lucky, but the people around them while they smoke might not be so lucky. Someone breathing in secondhand smoke can get almost the same effects as someone who is smoking a cigarette. This giving them the same risks for cancer as someone who smokes. All the side effects should of been enough to quite smoking, or not start at all for that matter! As some people say, the definition of smoking is: A pinch of tobacco rolled in paper with fire at one end and a fool at the other!

The answer for what we must do is simple. We must simply kill the smokers. We will add another poisonous chemical into the cigarettes. This chemical will kill the person who dares to smoke a cigarette. Of course we will tell the people about the new chemical before they smoke them if they are dumb enough to. We will make sure to put it on the news, and in newspapers. New warning labels will be placed onto the packaging. It will say: SURGEON GENERAL’S WARNING: Cigarettes now contain a deadly amount of arsenic and if smoked you will die in a couple of hours. Smoke at your own risk.

I know that at first people might not think that this idea is good. There are many advantages to my idea though. The first is obvious. People will stop smoking once they realize that it will kill them. People will also be able to stop breathing in secondhand smoke. Less people will die of cancer. Earlier I said how smoking-related diseases cost the U.S $150 million dollars each year, but since less and less people will be able to smoke that number will go way down. This will help save the U.S lots of money.

Another advantage is that pollution will decrease. Less cigarette smoke will be entering the atmosphere. Right now over 4,000 of the chemicals in cigarettes are released into the air. Once people stop smoking, no chemicals will be entering the air. This will help the air we breath become cleaner. Another way cigarettes are polluting is when people are finished with one they throw them on the ground and leave them there. Once people stop smoking, there will be no cigarettes to be thrown to the ground.

Another advantage if we ending smoking is more people will become better looking, inside and out! Smoking makes people age faster and get more wrinkles around their eyes and mouth also your mouth will look chapped and dry all the time. Smoking can also give your skin a gray or yellowish look, along with yellowing your teeth and fingertips. If you smoke your lungs become black and burnt looking. Your mouth looks gross and yellow and your breath will be awful. Good luck getting a date! Though once we end smoking, people who smoked before will become better looking, and people who were going to try smoking will not turn ugly like they would have! This doing the world a big favor!

Now with every brilliant idea there is disadvantages. First off, there is the people that will die from smoking the new cigarettes. Now as I said before, we will be putting new warning labels, and talking about the new cigarettes on the news and in magazines and newspapers. People will make sure to be warned. Of course there will be those people who think it is just some big joke, or think they are invincible. These peoples deaths will also help us get rid of the smoking. People will see that people are dying from these new cigarettes and that we are serious.

Companies will not at first like the new chemical being added to their cigarettes. People will stop buying their product and they may go out of business. The answer is simple. Make a new product that does not kill people.

So putting a deadly amount of arsenic will help stop smoking. People will realize that smoking is bad and that it can kill you. Less people each year will die from cancer related to smoking, the U.S will save lots of money along with people who waste money on buying cigarettes each year, and pollution will go down. My idea will only really benefit the people and I only want to benefit the people!  Many people will go through withdrawals, but they will soon become healthier, and save lots of money. So let’s get together and end smoking now!