Lung Smoking Gives You Lung Cancer
No matter what your opinion is regarding the medical reports about smoking and lung cancer, you know that there is more than one way to develop this terrible disease. While the focus for decades was to get people to stop smoking or to never start they were inundated with information and even pictures of how lung cancer spread in people who were smokers. Today, we now know that more than just smokers are being directly affected by lung cancer. Even people who have never smoked a cigarette in their life can get lung cancer from breathing second hand smoke. You have read the reports issued by the Surgeon General of the United States where it has been reported for several decades that there is a major health risk associated with smoking cigarettes and cigars. It was only after several years of prodding that the country and our legislatures began to understand the serious consequences related to lung disease and smoking. Based on reports from the Surgeon General, we now have a warning label on every pack of cigarettes that are sold in the United States.
It is easy to be disillusioned by the billboard and magazine ads that show healthy young people at a party or on the beach lighting up a cigarette. It is definitely the 'in' thing to do when you are with your friends. But, what if the advertisement showed instead a picture of a lung from a smoker that was being destroyed by cancer? What if the picture showed a person gasping for air as they carry around their oxygen bottle? Or, what if it showed an emancipated bald person hooked up to a chemotherapy drip? These pictures would not be as nice, but they certainly are more realistic when it comes to the effect that smoking has on the person's health. Smoking damages the lungs of the person who is puffing on that cigarette or cigar. And, while you can justify this in your own mind that they are only hurting themselves, you should think about that again. The person smoking is hurting everyone around them regardless of the person's age or gender. Second hand smoke is more dangerous to other people than smoking is to the person holding the cigarette. Sound confusing? You would think that the actual smoker would encounter more detrimental health effects that other people, but that is wrong. When you are sitting there after dinner relaxing with your cigarette, look across the table at your spouse and then think about this. The second hand smoke coming out of your mouth and off the end of your burning cigarette is likely to cause them to develop lung cancer-even though they never smoked a cigarette in their life. Are you willing to risk hurting the person you love the most just because you want a cigarette? |