Do cigarettes have any benefits?
The Dangers of Cigarette Smoking
With the rapid development of society, people are under too much pressure. They are seeking many methods to release their pressure. One of the most common ways existing is cigarette smoking. It is widely acknowledged that smoking is bad for people’s health. However, there are few people who really care about that fact.
Many people agree that smoking can cause death.
But they assume that death from smoking is so rare that they can be the exception. In fact, smoking is not always the direct factor of death but it can cause collateral damage on people’s health. I would like to use the analytic research project as a valuable opportunity to make my audience understand that:
smoking can actually cause death by leading to some serious diseases which threaten to human’s life. Even if smoking does not kill people, it indeed causes some health issues.
The main argument of this public service announcement is that smoking can cause death. In order to analyze this image, I am planning to describe what exists in the image first. The composition of the picture is very simple and clear.
Roughly, there are only three main items in the image, one big skull and two cigarettes. In general, the skull always means death. Since there are only two cigarettes existing with a human skull, it is easy to notice that there are some connections between those cigarettes and the death. The skull instead of a human head hanging over two cigarettes helps convince this idea. This
The idea receives support from the US Department of Health and Human Service.
According to the Surgeon General’s Report, “the major cause of excess mortality are diseases that relate to smoking, including cancer and respiratory and vascular disease (2016)”. It means that smoking is not the direct cause of death. Specifically, it can lead to many serious diseases that can cause death.
Moreover, according to the Surgeon General’s Report, “smoking causes about one of every five deaths in the United States each year (2016)”. This data illustrates that smoking is absolutely not a small element that leads to death. People should notice the death rate caused by smoking. They should know what causes the fatal disease rather than just know which disease can cause the death.
In order to avoid these diseases, they should root out the main cause, cigarette smoking.
When I look more carefully, there are also many details in this image. There is one small-sized skull on each cigarette. These small-sized skulls enhance the connection of cigarettes and death in audience heads. Additionally, it is interesting to find that there are many noticeable bite marks on two cigarettes. These details mean that those two cigarettes were sucked by someone many times.
This small detail illustrates that the smoker indeed enjoys smoking. Scientifically, smokers are actually addicted to smoking because of the inclusion of substances. According to the US Drug and Food Administration, “ Nicotine can lead to tobacco dependence”(2013). Nicotine is the main cause of the addiction because it can make the brain release more dopamine. Excessive dopamine can cause excitation, so people can feel happy and confident after cigarette smoking. That is why smoking can make smokers feel relaxed.
After a long period of time, it would be difficult for smokers to quit smoking due to the addiction.
What’s more, there is also another exhibit source cited from US Drug and Food Administration (2013) supporting that cigarette smoking is addictive. In the image, there is a big hole on the smoker’s neck, which is specialized to exhale the smoke. Generally, there is no hole on the human’s neck. This detail implies that the big hole is caused by smoking for a long time. This hole is so big that it cannot be simply ignored, which means that the smoker has already recognized the existence of the hole.
When I look more carefully, it is easy to find that there are some wrinkles around the hole. This detail illustrates the fact that the hole is still expanding. To be sure, this man continues smoking even though he has already found that there is a big hole on his neck and the big hole is still expanding.
The motivation for him to keep smoking is the addiction to cigarettes.
On the other hand, even if the smoker may want to quit smoking, the tobacco dependence will disobey the will of him at first.
That is why many try and use cigars as a transition. Less addictive and generally utilized with less frequency. Cigars have made a resurgence of late. Though it is a whole different world from cigarettes. CigarCigar is a great resource for choosing the best cigar for beginners.
Let’s move back to our primary source. There is a spiral and gray smoke above two cigarettes and the skull. If we think more deeply, this detail emphasizes that the real cause of the death is smoking, a behavior not the cigarette, an item. Seeing two cigarettes as a whole thing, I find that the position of two cigarettes is like a stop sign in the real world. The intersection of two cigarettes implies that smoking should be banned, smokers are supposed to quit smoking whatever happens.
Now, it is time to consider the method of this image.
There are many repetitions existing, two small-sized skulls, two cigarettes and several bite marks on cigarettes. If we think more deeply, we can find that the author uses many techniques in this picture to enhance the impression. I will analyze these techniques in the following part. The background is black. The black, a color, can make people feel desperate and inanimate.
Something should be noticed that humans are visual animals, which means that humans are dependent on the visual sense.
If all humans can see is nothing but complete darkness, they will feel scared and lonely. After feeling scared and lonely for a long time, it is common for humans to feel desperate and insane due to their fragile nerves. Nothing existing means in-animation. The black background associated with a huge white skull sets a tone of in-animation and death.
What’s more, the black can help people calm down and consider more seriously.
The main colors of the image are black and white. The conflict between black and white helps the audience focus on the main role of this public service announcement, cigarettes and skull, which increases the relation between them visually. Additionally, contrasting colors, black and white, transmit a message of opposition.
The fact that the author designs one small-sized skull on each cigarette instead of one small-sized skull on either one of two cigarettes has some intentions.
The small-sized skull sign on the cigarette is a symbol of death.
If there is one small-sized skull on a cigarette and no small-sized skull on the other cigarette, the meaning of this public service announcement can be understood like that not all cigarettes can cause death. In fact, all types of smoking can cause cancer, since all cigarettes include electronic cigarettes and cigars contain toxic substances. However, there is a small-sized skull on each individual cigarette.
The repetition highlights the argument that smoking causes death with no exception. Honestly, it is absolutely right to say that all smoking can cause death but not all smoking does.
Now, let us consider why this public service announcement wants to communicate this message even if it is not actually correct. Actually, this “no exception” message makes people feel fear. The fear appeals can increase the pathos of this image, which can make the cause of this public service announcement more acceptable.
At this point, many audiences may raise a question about how smoking can cause death.
Now, it is time to lift the veil. According to Saha, “the cigarette smoke is a highly complex mixture that contains approximately 4800 different compounds.
The complex mixture contains gasses such as ozone, formaldehyde, ammonia, carbon monoxide, toluene and benzene, and about 1010 particles of different sizes in each mL of mainstream smoke. [Moreover,] a number of other toxic and carcinogenic substances have been identified in both mainstream and sidestream cigarette smoke over the years“(2007).
Which is better for lungs vaping or smoking?
In other words, cigarette smoke contains thousands of compounds and most of them are toxic. It has been now realized that the health risks are caused by a combined effect of these toxic chemicals through multiple complicated mechanisms instead of one specific smoke element.
Concisely, these toxic chemicals altogether cause the fatal disease for smokers and finally possibly lead to death. No individual substance can cause the death.
However, cigarette smoking does not always lead to death. Smoking can cause some health issues which influence smokers’ normal lives. According to the Centers for Disease and Prevention, “ Smoking harms nearly every organ of the body and affects a person’s overall health”(2017). It is common for people to hear that smoking can cause health risks on the lung, nose, vascular and tooth. However, the overall fact is that smoking can harm every organ of the body including some organs that people would assume not to be affected by smoke. Specifically, smoking can affect bone health, so it would be easier for smokers to break their bones.
Additionally, smoking can also lead to some negative effects on the eyes.
According to the US Department of Health and Human Service,
“Smoking can increase your risk for cataracts (clouding of the eye’s lens that makes it hard for you to see). It can also cause age-related macular degeneration (AMD). AMD is damaged to a small spot near the center of the retina, the part of the eye needed for central vision”(2017).
After smoking for a long time, it is possible for smokers to lose their light. Consequently, although smoking does not always cause death, it indeed can cause some health issues, which would decrease the quality of a smoker’s life.
What’s more, cigarette smoking can also cause health risks to people around smokers.
In the last paragraph, it is shown that smoking can cause some health issues to smokers themselves. In fact, smoking can also negatively affect people besides smokers, including the fetus in the uterus. It is easy to understand that smoking can negatively affect people around smokers, since those people would also inhale the smoke which contains a lot of toxic substances while smokers are smoking. However, it will be hard to understand that smoking can negatively affect infants. How can smoking affect infants without directly inhaling the toxic smoke? I would like to explain that in the following part of this paragraph.
According to the US Department of Health and Human Service, “Smoking can [negatively] affect a baby’s health before and after the death”(2017).
It is common for people to think that smoking before giving birth to a child will not affect the fetus’s health since the fetus living in the uterus would not inhale the smoke. However, this common thought is totally incorrect. When a woman smokes during pregnancy, the toxic brew goes into the bloodstream, which is the only source for her baby’s oxygen and nutrients.
Even though the fetus does not inhale the smoke. He or she will receive negative affects through the bloodstream which contains toxic substances. In addition, smoking will also affect the birth rate of the baby. According to the US Department of Health and Human Service,
“Smoking can also affect men’s sperm, which can reduce fertility and also increase risks for birth defects and miscarriage”(2017).
Smoking negatively affects the health condition of the sperm, which can cause the death of the fetus. Consequently, cigarette smoking can affect other people besides smokers themselves, even the fetus in the uterus. In other words, smoking can hurt somebody besides smokers unintentionally.
Lastly, the intended audience for this public service announcement can be divided into two groups, people who tend to smoke but have never smoked before and people who have smoking experiences. For the first group of audience, this PSA persuades
and educates them not to smoke. For the second group of audience, this PSA warns them to quit smoking or smoke less at least. The core message for this image is that smoking can indeed cause death. Instead of using texts, the author uses an impressive image to highlight the possible result of smoking – death. The author of this image chose to design a three-dimensional skull instead of a two-dimensional skull to expect that the audience can treat the health effects of smoking more seriously.
In conclusion, to sum up. Cigarette smoking can cause health issues not only to smokers themselves but also to people around them without intention.
Even worse, smoking can cause some fatal diseases which finally lead to death. When people are at young ages, almost every one of them has a dream to be a superhero in order to protect somebody he or she loves, and somebody loves him or her.
Actually, that dream is not so far away. People can be the hero of each other by destroying any factor that may threaten their families and friends lives. Now, the target is clear. Do not let cigarette smoking take families away. Furthermore, do not let cigarette smoking take friends away. Do not let cigarette smoking ruin everything. It is never too late to quit smoking. It is never too late to protect. Lastly, it is never too late to say I love you.
Do cigarettes have any benefits?
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Do cigarettes have any benefits?
Works Cited Page : Do cigarettes have any benefits?
“Tobacco-Related Mortality.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 01 Dec. 2016. Web. 13 June 2017.
Saha, Sibu P et al. “Cigarette Smoke and Adverse Health Effects: An Overview of Research Trends and Future Needs.” The International Journal of Angiology : Official Publication of the International College of Angiology, Inc 16.3 (2007): 77–83. Print
The Primary Source
Mila Gligoric. “ Smoking can cause death.”
https://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-images-smoking-harmful-to-health image23796229
US Food and Drug Administration. “ Cigarettes are additive.”
Do cigarettes have any benefits?
