Ban on Public Smoking
“There was a young lady named Mae who smoked without stopping all day; as pack followed pack, her lungs first turned black and eventually rotted away.” On one of his chapters of Floating Worlds, the author Edward Gorey, was describing the effect smoking had on a woman named Mae. Many countries today have legislations that prohibit smoking in public places due to its negative impact on non-smokers; unlike the United Arab Emirates which does not have laws that forbid smoking in public. Smoking in public places does not only affect the smoker. It harms the non-smoker nearby even more. Therefore, smoking in public places should be banned because it harms the second-hand smoker more than the first-hand smoker, in some cases.
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Smoking is the action or habit of inhaling and exhaling the smoke of tobacco or a drug. According to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, the leading reason to major illnesses such as heart cancer in the United States of America is smoking. Considering that our heart is made of vessels which get affected easily after inhaling substances that might harm their functions, it is convincing that second-hand smoke might have a similar damage to first-hand smoking. According to medical experts in the UAE, “One in two deaths in the UAE are caused by cardiovascular diseases and that the first cardio event (strike) occurs at around 45”. The age of a strike in the UAE is around ten to fifteen years earlier than the international average, this replicates the lack of consciousness in the society about the risk factors of cardiovascular diseases such as smoking. One of the few countries who have released smoke free laws is England. This law was released on July 1st, 2007 and it bans smokers from publicly smoking anywhere in the country. Professor Linda Bauld from the University of Stirling and the United Kingdom Centre for Tobacco Control Studies describes the outcome of the law as remarkably positive, and it showed a 71% decline in the second-hand smoking of children. Most children are very sensitive which is what leads their body to immediately react after inhaling second-hand smoke. Furthermore, in a study conducted a year after the law was released, with the support of the Department of Health in England, there was an approximate 2.5% decrease in the admissions to hospitals due to heart attacks (BBC News). To conclude, heart difficulties and early deaths are a few of the results from smoking or second-hand