SMOKERS AND NON-SMOKERS: COMPARISON AND CONTRAST ESSAY

SMOKERS AND NON-SMOKERS: COMPARISON AND CONTRAST ESSAY

• SMOKERS AND NON-SMOKERS: COMPARISON AND CONTRAST ESSAY

Ever since Columbus brought tobacco to Europe, people started getting addicted to this substance. Even in the 20^th century when modern civilization has witnessed the impressive progress in all spheres of life including medicine, doctors recommended smoking Camel cigarettes. Fortunately, later it was revealed that smoking causes a variety of different illnesses (the direst of which is lung cancer) and must be abandoned by the people who care about their health. Nevertheless, in the 21^st century, the habit of smoking causes a lot of heated debates. There are people who have acquired the habit of smoking and don’t want to give it up, even though it harms their health as well as the health of other people. They like the clouds of smoke, the taste of tobacco, and the process of smoking, and they are ready to sacrifice their health to experience joy from smoking. On the contrary, there are people who lead a healthy lifestyle and don’t smoke. A great number of people from this category are against smoking as they don’t want to suffer from the effects of inhaling cigarette smoke. Society can’t ban smoking completely, because it’s the habit that a lot of people have, and banning it would mean rejecting their desires and self-expression. This is why regulations were introduced to limit smoking considerably and remove smokers from public places. However, these regulations can’t remove the problem completely because smokers and non-smokers are not just people who have different habits. These groups of people have different lifestyles. 

Smokers say that they have a right to smoke and they can’t be robbed off this right by anyone, otherwise it would mean unlawful limitation of their personal freedom. In this sense to a lot of smokers, the limitations on smoking are perceived as the challenge to their lifestyle that they don’t desire to change. However logical their reasoning may sound, inability to acknowledge that your actions may harm the health of other people would be highly egotistical. From this perspective, it’s easy to understand the opinion of non-smokers, who compared to smokers are more concerned about their health and don’t want to smoke and inhale cigarette smoke in public places. There are also people who just can’t stand cigarette smoke, and if they inhale the smoke, it can cause headaches, heart tension, and in some cases even fainting. For the welfare of such people, the introduction of smoking limitation was absolutely necessary.

As we can see both positions are quite strong. Because smokers don’t want to give their harmful habit and non-smokers don’t want to harm their health through cigarette smoke and don’t want to suffer from the harmful habits of other people who can’t stop smoking. 

The only thing that smokers and non-smokers have in common is their antagonism. It’s evident that any regulations can’t remove this antagonism, as it is rooted in the consciousness of every individual. Smokers appreciate their lifestyle and non-smokers appreciate theirs. There’s not much that regulations can do about it. Only a conscious choice made on the individual level can make a difference.