Collaboration Workshop

Would you review my exploratory research essay? I really need feedback. I know it is long, so I don't want you to proofread it. But please let me know if it includes serious grammar errors. And if you answer the questions below, I really appreciate you.

-Do the paragraphs flow smoothly? Identify places where you think you lost.
-Do you feel that you are missing some information or some point of view?
-Any suggestions for improvement?

Thanks while looking forward to hearing from you.


Public Smoking Ban

The harmful effects of smoking, both active and passive, are well known and undeniable. However, smoking is far from being in decline; it is spreading among young people in particular rapidly. Smoking ban is one of the controversial ways for reducing smoking and recognizing non-smokers’ right to health protection. Debates on smoking ban certainly snowball around the world. The on-going debate has intensified greatly in Australia, England, America, Turkey, China, Canada, and France.

The health risks of smoking are clear. Passive smoking does carry risks but they are small compared to the risks of active smoking. I am one of the advocates of a smoke free world. I saw my granddad and other relatives die from cigarette-induced cancer. And many others have several second-hand-smoking diseases.

The British Medical Association, Royal College of Physicians, World Health Organization, and the UK Independent Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health (amongst many other leading medical and scientific organizations) all recognize second hand smoke as a cause of a range of life-threatening and disabling conditions. Second hand smoking has been evaluated as “carcinogenic to humans” by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer [WHO] British Medical Association makes an announcement that the second hand smoke causes respiratory diseases in children and sudden infect death syndrome, lung cancer, heart disease, *** cancer and smoke in non-smoking adults. It has been estimated that passive smoke is responsible for over 50,000 deaths in the USA each year. [Tobacco control 375]

The World Health Organization regards tobacco consumption as one of this century’s major public-health challenges. It is a sort of worldwide epidemic that must be combated at world level. [WHO/61] According to Council of Europe Social, Health, and Family Affairs Committee, there are several resolutions for stepping up public health protection measures, recognizing non-smokers’ right to health protection, and reducing smoking. Prohibiting direct, indirect or disguised advertising in any form whatsoever of tobacco products or by-products, encouraging aggressive anti-smoking advertising that shows the harmful effects of tobacco smoke on the health of smokers and their families, friends and colleagues and promotes the rights and image of non-smokers, bearing a compulsory warning about the harmful effects of tobacco on the health of smokers and their families, friends and colleagues on cigarette packets, introducing appropriate policies to prevent adolescents, a tobacco industry target group, from starting to smoke and developing dependence on tobacco, introducing policies aimed at encouraging people to give up smoking, especially young people and pregnant women, by ensuring easy access to the various methods and substitutes available to help people stop smoking, and making smoke-free areas (which includes public offices, workplaces, residential facilities and care centers, educational establishments, theatres and concert halls, sports venues, public transport, and so on) are some of the resolutions. [Council of Europe]

Most controversial debate about resolutions is going on public smoking ban. The reason is simple: Smoking ban affects directly all people rapidly and we can see its effects in a short-term period. Whichever way the decision goes, it will be controversial. However, everyone agrees that, it is a matter of rights - the right of smokers to light up versus non-smokers to protect from second-hand smoking and to breathe clean air.

Every side agrees on beneficial effects of smoking ban on health protection. The creation of smoke-free public places also improves air quality. Banning smoking in the workplace does not only protect non-smokers from the effects of passive smoking; workplace-smoking bans have an indirect benefit. Employees in workplaces with no smoking restrictions smoke almost five more cigarettes daily than those whose workplaces completely ban smoking, says a study by the University of Toronto's Ontario Tobacco Research Unit. "Usually, the reason given for banning smoking in the workplace is to benefit non-smokers and this is a valid and important reason," says OTRU's Dr. Thomas Stephens. "What this study shows is that the bans also have health benefits for smokers themselves.” [OTRU]

Despite these compelling arguments, two principal stances are adopted to try to justify inaction. The first is: smoke-free public places, would harm the businesses. The second is philosophical: the smoker has a basic human right to smoke in public places, and the ban is a limitation for smokers’ rights.

Businesses, smokers, publicans, tobacco industries, stars, and some of the non-smokers oppose public smoking ban. The tobacco industry likes to suggest that going completely smoke free would be disastrous and lead to declines in business.

However, surveys showed that trade had not been adversely affected. New York banned smoking in public places on March 1, 2003. Business between April to September 2003 was up 12% from the same period the year before, and in the 3 months after the ban, employment in bars and restaurants rose by 10,000 people. [Cancer Research UK]

Each year, the Chief Medical Officer (CMO), the UK Government's principal medical adviser, delivers an independent report to government on aspects of the nation’s health. The economic analysis within the CMO’s annual report says going smoke-free can help the national economy and the hospitality industry, and the British economy could benefit by up to £2.7billion if such a ban went ahead. [CMO 24]

I don't think the economic arguments get at the real issue. Now, clarifying the final argument about smokers’ right to smoke: any human right has to be balanced against the rights of others.

I observe that smokers generally have many addictions: sleeping, sucking their thumbs or using a pacifier for long years in their childhood (longer than the others’ rate), et cetera. Because of this, I’ve believed that addiction to smoking has a genetic component. And I read a study relating this issue a couple of days ago. Studies find some people are “born to smoke,” and quitting may be tougher for smokers with “craving” gene. The genetic predisposition comes from having a version of the CYP2B6 gene, which is involved in metabolizing both nicotine and bupropion. The gene variant is less active than other forms of the gene, which may in turn affect how nicotine is metabolized in the brain. "Smokers who had the genetic variant had a greater increase in cravings after they quit," says Caryn Lerman, Ph.D., associate director for cancer control and population science at the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania and professor in Penn's School of Medicine and the Annenberg Public Policy Center, who led the research. "And they were more likely to relapse than smokers without the variant." [PENN]

Hence, the real issue results from nicotine dependence and genetic predisposition. Smokers light a cigarette because they need to smoke, not for they want it, because nicotine is physically addictive. Therefore, smokers think that the public smoking ban is oppressiveness. They see the ban as a treatment to smokers as second-class citizens. Smokers agree that the smoking ban benefits the world, but cannot support the ban, because effects of nicotine obstruct them. I think we should respect smokers, and we should come up with system that satisfies smokers. Clearly demarcated and separated areas for who want to smoke can be one resolution. And we should discuss about finding effective resolutions.

Public smoking ban needs to be measured, better understood, and to be made a beneficial decision. Smokers should not be made to look like outcasts, but smokers should respect non-smokers when sharing places. I agree that completely smoke-free places are the ideal, and some businesses have taken the decision to go completely smoke-free. We should support them in their decision, and would like to see more. However, I recognize that it is not always going to be possible. Let's come up with a system based on tolerance for smokers and non-smokers.


Works Cited

[1] WHO International Agency for Research on Cancer. Volume 83: Tobacco smoke and
involuntary smoking. Summary of Data Reported and Evaluation, Lyon: IARC, Volume 83, June 2002. http://monographs.iarc.fr/htdocs/monographs/vol83/02-involuntary.html
[2] Tobacco Control, Second hand smoke and risk assessment: What was in it for the tobacco
industry? December 2001. Tobacco control, 10 (4), 375
[3] WHO, The Smoking Epidemic - "A Fire In The Global Village", 25 August 1997
Press Release WHO/61 http://www.who.int/archives/inf-pr-1997/en/pr97-61.html
[4] Council of Europe , Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee, Campaigning against
passive and active smoking – daring to innovate and step up public health protection measures Doc. 9463, 15 May 2002, http://assembly.coe.int/Documents/WorkingDocs/doc02/EDOC9463.htm
[5] Ontario Tobacco Research Unit. Workplace Smoking Bans Help Smokers Cut Back, Says
Study. October 28, 2004. http://www.otru.org/pdf/press/pressrelease_oct2004.pdf
[6] Cancer Research UK, Second Hand Smoke Debate Facts, 2004
http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/images/11632/secondhandsmoke_debate.pdf
[7] CMO(Chief Medical Officer), Donaldson, Liam, The Annual Report For 2003, Health
check on the state of public health, Going smoke-free: The Economic, page 24, 28/,07/2004, http://www.dh.gov.uk/assetRoot/04/08/66/57/04086657.pdf
[8] University of Pennsylvania Health System Department of Public Affairs. Genetic Variant
May Impact Smoking Cessation. November 1, 2002. http://www.upenn.edu/researchatpenn/article.php?497&hlt
[9] Ban the Ban, Smoking Ban's Economic Impact, Part 2, March 29, 2004
http://www.bantheban.org/archives/011131.php