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Matthew Short

Mrs. Dott

English III Honors

26 October 2017

Smoking Kills

Imagine a picture of a cigarette. Now make sure it is made out of people. When someone

smokes it, each person fades away one by one as the cigarette becomes smaller and smaller.

Does this image make you feel slightly depressed? Do you now feel bad for those people? This is

what Alghanim Industries, the creator of this image, wanted the public to feel when this image

created. Smokers are harming not only themselves, but the people around them, yet they are not

aware of it and need to be so they can decide whether they want to put those people in harm's

way.

In the image, you can clearly see a line of text saying “Don’t kill yourself and us too”.

According to a study done by Christopher Wanjek on www.livescience.com, “smoking accounts

for thirty percent of all cancer deaths and eighty-seven percent of lung cancer deaths”(Wanjek,

Smoking’s Many Myths Examined). These are only some of the negative aspects about

smoking. According to the CDC, “…smoking is responsible for more than 480,000 deaths per

year in the US…”. This accounts for 1,300 deaths every day in the US due to smoking alone

(Fast Facts: Diseases and Death). This shows how bad smoking is for each person who does it,

but they do not stop because they do not feel the need to. Nicotine is the overall large problem,
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because it makes their bodies feel uncomfortable, like they cannot live, without tobacco. Maybe

if smokers knew these stats and felt they still had things they wanted to do in life, they will be

able to make an effort to stop and quit smoking for good and live significantly better lives. But

what about the people exposed to secondhand smoking?

In the second part of the text in the picture “Don’t kill yourself and us too.”, the text

refers to the people who are exposed to secondhand smoking. Many people are exposed to

secondhand smoking and do not know that they are being exposed to just as much harm as the

person who is smoking it. While smoking is responsible for more than 480,000 deaths per year,

the CDC also says secondhand smoking causes more than 41,000 deaths a year. Also, being

exposed to secondhand smoke will give the affected person just as much of a chance of acquiring

cancer as a person who smokes first hand. Many people do not know about this and will continue

to live their lives, while some might not be as exposed that they might not notice anything bad

happening, but for those people who are exposed to it daily are the ones that these statistics are

pointed towards. If they were aware of what was happening to them, then they might get away or

talk to the individual, who is exposing it to them, about stopping or not smoking around them.

This is what the picture is trying to explain to us, the people in the cigarette are the people the

smoker is harming around him.

The majority of people might think that they don’t really need to know this information,

so why should people know about the dangers happening under their noses? Would you want to

know? While most would not care, people will most likely see smoking differently if they knew

what they were being exposed to. They will want to stay away from those who do smoke, and
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smokers, who cares, likeliness to stop may go up due to not wanting to harm those around them.

The CDC believes that the percentage of smokers quitting will go up and those beginning to

smoke will go down if more people are aware of the consequences(Fast Facts: Cigarette

Smoking in the US).

The creation of this rhetoric was to inform the people who smoke to be careful smoking

around nonsmokers. They do not smoke for a reason and should not have to be careful of staying

away from those who do smoke. But, it is up to the one who smokes whether they want to

continuously harm their friend if they often smoke around them or some guy right next to him

who walks that path every day. Maybe someday smoking will not exist or so many people will

be aware of the issues, that the percentage of smokers will go down tremendously.
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Work Cited

Alghanim industries. Smoking Kills. 2015, digital, the Internet

“Smoking & Tobacco Use.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention, 29 Mar. 2017,

www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast_facts/index.htm.

Wanjek, Christopher. “Smoking's Many Myths Examined.” LiveScience, Purch, 18 Nov. 2008,

www.livescience.com/3093-smoking-myths-examined.html.