Cigarettes and other tobacco products are incredibly prevalent in today’s society. In fact, the CDC estimates that in 2015, around 15.1% of the adult population of the U.S. (36.5 million people) were current cigarette smokers. According to the CDC, over 480,000 Americans die each year due to cigarette smoking, and over 41,000 of these deaths are due to secondhand smoking. This is a huge portion of the American population that is dying from a cause that is easily preventable. Cigarettes and other tobacco products should be outlawed because they are dangerous to not only the people who use them, but to the environment and everyone around them. First of all, cigarettes and other tobacco products are highly dangerous to people who use them. Smoking is a known cause of an unimaginably large number of different diseases, including strokes, asthma, leukemia, tuberculosis, and at least 17 different types of cancer, to name a few (“Effects of Smoking”). Clearly, smoking is incredibly unsafe, and the fact that people smoke anyway despite knowing the health risks is insane. Cigarettes are not …show more content…
As stated earlier, over 41,000 Americans die every year due to secondhand smoking (“Burden of Tobacco Use”). This is an immense number of people that are being killed each year because of this unspeakable act that others are partaking in. According to Merriam-Webster, manslaughter is defined as “the unlawful killing of a human being without express or implied malice.” Admittedly, charging smokers with manslaughter due to secondhand smoking is impractical and slightly ridiculous, but it fits the definition of manslaughter. It is one thing for smokers to risk their own lives by smoking, but the fact that they are killing other human beings in the process is a key reason why smoking should be