Home » Languages » English (Sr. Secondary) » Essay, Paragraph or Speech on “How can Smoking be discouraged among the Youth?” Complete Essay, Speech for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

Essay, Paragraph or Speech on “How can Smoking be discouraged among the Youth?” Complete Essay, Speech for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

How can Smoking be discouraged among the Youth?

Multinationals have no future for their product in the developed markets. That is why they are trying to increase their market place by selling cigarettes in the developing countries,” says Dr. Stephen J. Bourke, expert in respiratory medicine from the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, U.K.

What is really dangerous—no milder word will suffice-is that multinationals and big companies are targeting adolescents. There is a multi-pronged attack to get the young boy or girl to smoke. This is done through colourful advertisements in the visual media and sponsorship of major sports and cultural events. In-house, there are whispers that employees of tobacco companies have to smoke if they want furtherance in their careers. And directed at the adult smoker who might be thinking of giving it up are nicely-worded press releases and advertisements which ‘found’ that smoking has no fink to disease.

Dr. Bourke is firm that the link is there, a strong one too. More than fifty per cent of patients with lung cancer are smokers,” he said in an interview. As for chronic lung disease, he has patients in their fifties and sixties whose lungs are so badly damaged by smoking that they need to take domiciliary oxygen treatment. These people, who are in no fit condition to lead normal lives, leave alone go to work, keep oxygen concentrators at home with the ambient air of higher percentage of oxygen.

It is scientifically proved that there is a link between smoking, especially the passive variety and asthma. It has been observed that children from families where parents smoke have higher asthma. Epidemiological surveys too have revealed that children of smoking parents especially if the mother is a smoker have a greater prevalence of asthma and severe asthma more abnormalities of rung function–and greater hyper-responsiveness (of the airways) than children of non-smokers.

A startling piece of information—the smoke inhaled from a cigarette contains as much carbon monoxide as car exhaust. Carbon monoxide in tobacco smoke displaces oxygen from red blood cells so that less oxygen reaches the heart. And the oxygen that does reach the heart is used less efficiently because chemicals in smoke lower the levels of a key enzyme called Cytochrome c oxidase. Smoke also activates platelets in the blood, making clot formation more likely. So, there is no point in wearing a mask while driving through heavy traffic and then reaching for a cigarette at that end of the journey to relieve tension.

While epidemiological studies linking smoking and cancer can be contested as being circumstantial, evidence at the molecular level cannot be so dismissed. In a Californian laboratory, a technique called “chromosome painting” has been used to detect damaged stretches of DNA in smokers. The specific damage is called translocation, a phenomenon that is implicated in cancer. And a research team at the John Hopkins University. U.S. has found that smoking dramatically increases mutations in a gene called p53 that normally suppresses the growth of cancer. Mutations in p53 are believed to contribute to cancer’s inception and growth. Further, the study indicates that consumption of alcohol abets the process.

In the U.S years of campaigning are finally paying dividends. After the Environmental Protection Agency declared that second-hand smoke is a carcinogen, the Occupational Health Administration is proposing rules that would ban or seriously restrict smoking in every workplace. In a big boost to the anti-smoking lobby, the former U.S. President, Mr. Bill Clinton proposed sweeping regulations intended to curtail smoking among teenagers, including a ban on vending machine sales, sharp new limits on tobacco company’s sponsorship of sports events and advertising aimed at young people and a requirement that all buyers of cigarettes show proof that they are 18 years of age. The President’s announcement accepted the Food and Drug Administration’s findings that nicotine in cigarettes should be declared an addictive drug.

In Asia too, this temper is catching on. Stringent restrictions relating to vending machines and selling cigarettes to anyone under the age of 18 have either come into force or are soon to be enforced in South Korea, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand and many other countries.

Unfortunately, in India there is little campaigning save the statutory warnings printed in small print on cigarette cartons and advertisements. As Dr K. Harnath, Secretary, Asthma and Bronchitis Association, Southern Chapter, says, the problem of smoking is widespread in India, but no studies have been done to estimate what percentage of the population are smokers.

Thanks to the Association’s efforts, there are a couple of isolated instances of action. In one of the major corporate hospitals in Chennai, smoking is not permitted in a majority of the hospital space. The Association is soon starting special “clinics” for cessation of smoking where modem methods will be used to tackle the problem. Another corporate office in the city, on its own initiative, has declared that its premises are “non-smoking’. Not even the Director of the company or foreign visitors smoke on the premises. Recently, the Kerala Government took a bold decision to ban smoking in its offices and educational institutions. More such revolutionary methods are needed, if India is not to go the Western way and sit up when it is already too late for thousands of people.

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