SMOKING GIVES MORE NEGATIVE EFFECTS TO STUDENTS

ENGLISH FOR ACADEMIC

PURPOSES
(LE 4000)
DR. WAN NARMI AZIANA BT
WAN ABDULLAH

TITLE:
SMOKING GIVES MORE NEGATIVE
EFFECTS TO STUDENTS

PREPARED BY:
MUHAMMAD BIN ABDULLAH
(DL1518853)
SITI TASNIM BT ABD MANAN

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SMOKING GIVES MORE NEGATIVE EFFECTS TO STUDENTS

(DL1515910)
Smoking Gives More Negative Effects to Students

Smoking is one of the most important public health problems, and

according to a statistics revealed by Department of Health Outcomes and
Policy in United States as stated by Al-Mohamed and Amin (2010),
smoking is responsible for approximately 5.6 million deaths per year
worldwide, and that figure is expected to exceed to eight million by 2030.
According to Peters, Kelder, Alexander, C. Sawyer, S.Yacoubian, and
Agurcia (2008), this worrisome problem affects 54.3 million teenagers
around the world, in which 64 percent of them are still students, which
means students in Malaysia are also affected by this unhealthy trend. We
believe that parental and sibling smoking, the ease of obtaining
cigarettes, socio-economic status, marketing strategies among tobacco
companies, smoking influence by friends and group members, depictions
of smoking in films, televisions and other media are wide range of risk
factors that we associated with smoking initiation among students. It is
estimated that, each year, at least 23 million young people around the
world start smoking by the age of 15 as a result of exposure to smoking in
the home as revealed by Peters, et al. (2008) that children who live with
parents or siblings who smoke are 3 times more likely to become smokers
themselves than children from non-smoking family.

Smoking by definition is the act of inhaling smoke, produced by the

combustion of an element through mouth usually of tobacco in a cigarette
or pipe. We stressed this issue on teenager, or students to be precise,
because based on a research done by Laura, Haslam, Christina and
Richard (2016) on behalf of the Tobacco Control Committee of the World
Respiratory Society, they proved that the younger the age of uptake of
smoking, the greater the harm is likely to be because early uptake is
associated with subsequent heavier smoking, a lower chance of quitting,
higher mortality as well as higher level of dependency. Even with a
standardized packaging and the sale of cigarettes to under 18s is

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prohibited since 2004, the number of young smokers especially students

in Malaysia does not seem to decline. Furthermore, smoking is also
restricted or banned in almost all public places and cigarettes companies
are no longer allowed to advertise on TV, radio and many magazines.
However, legislation alone is not sufficient to prevent smoking, what we
need is to open up their mind through education and serious discussion on
this issue is a must and should be held in schools.

Considering the factors and all the harmful effects of smoking at the
early age, we believe that it will affects the students in many ways. Thus,
this paper aims to discuss the negative effects of smoking on students
with three main issues which are health problem, financial cost and
behaviour.

Smoking is Harmful to Health

Cigarette smoke contains more than 4000 chemicals, including 43

known cancer-causing (carcinogenic) compounds and 400 other toxins like
nicotine, tar, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, ammonia, hydrogen
cyanide and many more (Elfeddali & Vries, 2016). Epidemiological studies
done by Endoh and Leung (2008) show that with the nicotine and tar
working together, there are a lot of bad diseases linked to smoking
cigarettes, where heart disease, chronic bronchitis, emphysema, lung
cancer, mouth cancer and throat cancer are all diseases caused by
smoking. From all the previous research done, either clinically or
experimentally, it has been proven that smoking is harmful to the body in
many ways, especially to the lung that the first main idea.

As we all know, nicotine is the main substance contained in the

cigarette and it is the main addictive factor where it creates a certain
pleasure in the brain other than poses very serious health risks in the long
run. Besides, body keeps receiving nicotine over time, it learns to depend
on it and when one tries to stop smoking, nicotine withdrawal symptoms
will get in the way to make it hard for someone to stop smoking. As many

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teenagers think that there are no harmful effects of smoking on their

bodies until they reach middle age, research done has proved the other
way round. In fact, latest research by Laura et al. (2016) shows that
serious symptoms of addiction to nicotine, the urge of having more and
disease associated with cancer are worst if a smoker starts at the early
age. Many teenagers and younger children inaccurately believe that
casual use of cigarette or just trying once a while will not lead to any
serious dependency. However, the serious symptoms of addiction like
having strong urge to smoke, irritable and feeling anxious may occur at
the first try especially if one starts at the age of early puberty. This is
because at that age, the brain is easy to accept nicotine as a welcoming
substance and alters brain chemistry that will lead of wanting more as
compared to a person who starts smoking late (Khosravi, 2016).

This has proved that smoking is alternately harmful for the body,
especially for students who at first try it for fun since the substance in the
cigarette will leave a trace in their body especially nicotine which has a
highly addictive effect. Other than that, smokers do not just harm their
body, but the others as well or also known as secondhand smokers. In
2014, almost 64% of students reported being exposed to secondhand
smoke indoors or outdoors (Cutler & Glaeser, 2009). Of these, 59%
experienced secondhand smoke in their own house and the rest were
exposed to smoke from the places outside their house. Either being a
smoker or secondhand smoker, our students are exposed to the negative
effects of cigarette everywhere.

Financial Cost Effect

The second main idea is financial cost effect because of smoking. In

Malaysia, a box of cigarette which contains 12 to 14 pieces of cigarettes
cost around RM7 up to RM24 per box. With these amount of money, a
serious smokers may end up spending money more than RM100 a month
for cigarettes. If students are smoking, they may be spending more

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money on cigarettes and smoking-related expenses than they realize.

Because money spent on cigarettes is often stretched out over a longer
period of time, it can be difficult to grasp exactly how much money they
are spending, especially if parents are the one source of allowance of that
particular students. Futhermore, it gets worst if the students are spending
their money to buy cigarettes than their daily needs, preferably for study
purposes.

As mentioned by Cutler and Glaeser (2009), a cigarette is the only

consumer product which when used as directed kills its consumer(p.120).
Thus smokers are actually spending their money on something not
relevant which eventually can kill them without their knowing. Now, it has
become a trend for students to move from a normal cigarette to the
electronic one. However, it does not change anything, students still
spending their money and it is still harmful for their health at the same
time, just like the normal one. Other smoking implements that are popular
among teenagers nowadays, students especially who wanted to try new
things are like pipes, cigars, bidis, hookah, vaporizers and bongs. All these
things do not work without money. We believe of whatever type the
cigarettes it is, it still not worth spending money on, and students who
spend money on cigarettes are actually spending money on a diseases
free-ticket.

Smoking Caused Negative Behaviours.

The third main idea is negative behaviours. Unhealthy behaviour are

a major part of the health research associated with consuming cigarette.
Even this includes many health-harming behaviours as well as the
behaviour that will affect others and the surrounding. A theory prevailed
by Grossman (2008) said that, the more consumption of tobacco
especially at the early age of puberty, the worst it would be but the rates
of it would differ across people. If this theory is right, teenagers, especially
students, are most probably suffer it even if it is differ across people. Even

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if health behaviours differ generally, at some point, one might get live
experience shocks to their large behavioural changes in terms of their
incomes, attitudes and beliefs.

Every day, more than 1000 teenagers under 18 years old become a
regular smokers and about 90 percent of them are falling into a serious
dependency of smoking. This worrisome problems are getting worst when
a research by Cutler and Glaeser (2009) revealed that there are
substances in cigarette like hydrogen cyanide, volatile alcoholic and
sulphur compound that will unlock certain brain cell receptor, causing it to
set off a chain of events to perform a mediation of cell function. The
researcher then, relates it with the increases of stress. This is contrary to
the popular belief among the students who argues that they consume
cigarettes to release stress while studying because smoking does not
relieve stress at all, in fact it causes stress.

Aggressive behaviours, depression and anger are the other negative

behaviours that associated with smoking. Furthermore, there is also a
strong association between smoking and other substance use like alcohol
and drug use. In 2014, 35 percent secondary school students are reported
in United States to have an addiction to these three substance at a time
(Matuszewski, 2015). With all the three substance working together, it will
create a desirous disaster to human body especially teenagers, who are
known in their rebellious phase. Even if the research is evaluated in the
States, it is not impossible that it might be happening as well in Malaysia.

Other ill behaviour effect of smoking is losing focus. That is why we

can see that most students who consume cigarette or regular smokers
usually do not excel in their studies and they start creating scenes at
school. This is because they start to lose their focus in class and usually
these kind of students will create scenes to grab the teachers attention
like play truant or maybe involve in bullying. In worst cases, these groups
of students feel proud to be a smoker. With all the evidence from previous
research, we believe that smoking has caused many negative effects on

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students and at the same time it will lead to the disruption of self-control
as well as positive attitude in our community.

Conclusion

In conclusion, many think include students that smoking is harmful

to health, but they were more like to think that it is not so harmful.
However, research done have proved otherwise. Of all the literature study
done, there is no single research proving that smoking cigarette is good or
bringing good things to the body, self-economy or behaviours. In fact, with
more than 4000 chemicals contain in a piece of cigarette, it will be really
harmful to the body especially students who are in their adolescent phase
where their body tend to react easily with any substance consumed by
them. To sum up, smoking is an ongoing threatening danger that cause
addiction and it might affect our next generation in many negative ways.
As discussed, smoking has caused negative effects on health, financial
cost as well as behaviour. The best solution is prevention, as according to
the proverb that says, Prevention is better than cure.

Here we provide a suggestion in term of preventing this problem

from getting worst and effecting our next generation even more. Firstly,
parents can take a number of effective actions to protect their kids from
starting to smoke or becoming the next addicted victims of tobaccos
industry. Being good parents and role model is important, but it takes
much more to prevent the kids from smoking. Parents must also work
against pro-smoking influences outside the home, including efforts to
ensure that schools are doing their best to prevent and reduce the youth
from smoking. For parents who smoke, it is best for them to quit smoking
for the sake of the children. This is because, as been stated earlier,
children who live with parents or siblings who smoke are 3 times more
likely to become smokers themselves than children from non-smoking
family. Together we can create a better nation with zero consumption of
tobacco. Lastly, all the smokers should be aware of the all benefits if they
stop smoking including increased energy and at the same time they are

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free from the worry that damaging their health, as well as their family and
surrounding.

In Islamic perspective, the protest of the consumption of tobacco

was motivated by a concern for what would today be called as
protectionism or economic justice. More recently, such tobacco fatwa
(Islamic legal pronouncements) has been issued due to health concerns.
The Holy book of Islam, a Quran, does not specifically prohibit or
denounce smoking, but gives behavioural guidance: Do not throw
yourself into danger by your own hands Surah al-Baqarah (2:195). Thus
considering all the health effects caused by tobacco, by hook or by crook,
it is a must for a Muslim to obey the fatwa and stop smoking immediately.

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References

Al-Quran, Surah Al-Baqarah (2:195)

Al-Mohamed, H.I. & Amin, T. T. (2010). Pattern and Prevalence of Smoking

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Cutler. D. & Glaeser. E. (2009). What Explains Differences in Smoking,

Drinking and Other Health-Related Behaviours? National Bureau of
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