The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that about one-third of the global adult population or 1.1 billion people are smokers. Every year, tobacco kills 3.5 million people around the world. In other words, about 10,000 people around the world die from tobacco every day (Tobacco Use Facts, 2004). Every day in the US, 3,000 teens become newly addicted to smoking.Think about it: most will not be able to quit for 17 years, and over 1,000 of those teens will later die from cigarettes (Reynolds P, 2002). I consider that tobacco needs to be regulated and it should not be legal.
             On the one hand, tobacco contains nicotine and is addictive. If you doubt this, just ask anyone who had tried to quit! Some teens are not so concerned about the risk of disease later in life. However, the fact is, cigarettes cause emphysema, lung cancer, and heart disease, and 4 out of every ten smokers later die from their addiction to tobacco (Reynolds P, 2002). As to the choice to smoke, eighty to ninety percent of US smokers became addicted before reaching age 19, and this product is as addicting as heroin (Reynolds P, 2002).Tobacco is the only consumer product that if used in an intended manner, causes death in a high percentage of its users. It is different than other consumer products and deserves to be treated differently. Looking at the public perception of the tobacco lawsuits, many people feel that smokers should be accountable for the disease and death they bring on themselves by their choice to continue to smoke. They should, no question. However, does that mean we should let the tobacco industry go unaccountable for its part in causing the problem? They targeted young people in their ad campaigns, they failed to warn of the addictiveness of their products, and for years they claimed publicly that smoking doesn't cause disease.
             On the other hand, there have been more recent reports of cigar companies paying to promote cigars in films. Movie sta...