Think One Cigarette Analysis

A sixty five-year-old man lies in the street, powerlessly gripping his chest. His frail bones are not enough to support his damaged body any longer, and his harsh cough continues to deteriorate his esophagus. Fifty years ago, the same man was offered his first cigarette at the age of fifteen, a time that would be a defining moment for a lifetime of pain. What started as an inconsequential, innocent habit in his childhood slowly became the addiction that took his life. The taste of his first cigarette was not filled with merely the amount of regret and bitterness as his last. While a fictitious story, it is not a far fetched one; every day, twenty five hundred children try a cigarette or tobacco product for the first time, often offered by an older peer. One

Likewise, the addiction rate associated with smoking is greater than that in marijuana, alcohol, and cocaine (“Think One Cigarette Can’t Hurt?”). It could be prevented, but few regulations on tobacco use in teenagers can consequently lead to premature death and a lifetime of stress on the body. A charter provision enacted by the Ann Arbor City Council recently placed a ban on the purchase of tobacco products to residents under the age of twenty one, a change from the previous age of eighteen. The bill received immense animosity and fury; so much so that Michigan senators Rick Jones and John Proos proposed senate bill number 1066, as a means of amending the original ordinance and essentially preventing the fluctuation of the state’s legal age (Jones, “Senate Bill No. 1066”). Its intent revolves around the concept of maintaining old local economic business be keeping customers within reach, while arguing that a legal age increase will have little to no impact on its utilization by minors. Senate bill number 1066 should not be enacted in order to prevent premature disease and death in young adults, as well as increasing economic productivity and lessen the harmful environmental impacts related