Second Artifact: Smoking Ban

Shortly after the nationwide ban on public smoking went into effect in Scotland, the pub workers in Scotland breathed easier, scientists said. Daniel Menzies and his collegues indentified 90 non smoking workers at 41 randomly chosen bars in Dundee and Perth.

Before the smoking ban was set in place in March, researchers met each participant one month to test the volunteer's breathing, sample their blood and note their health. The researchers continued the tests one and two months after the ban was set. One month after the ban was set, only 41 had shortness of breath, eye irritation, and a running nose. This number was decreased slightly from the 61 who reported these symptoms before the ban, and continued to decrease the next month, the researchers report in the "Oct. 11 Journal of the American Medical Association."

The people who worked at pubs also took tests. One showed that the workers had less white blood cells in the bloodstreams two months after the ban was set than before. This showed reduced inflammation. The second test calculated the workers' breath for nitric oxide, a gas that is made by inflammation in the lungs. Workers who were in good health showed no change after the ban, "but bar workers with asthma showed a 20 percent drop in expelled nitric oxide by 1 month afterward."

Even though the ban makes the workers and bar-goers healthier, the bar and restaurant owners are opposed to the ban, saying it will cut into their profits. The bars owners who strongly oppose the ban can sign for a waiver to allow smoking in their bars.

Questions:
1. If the ban in Scotland worked well, why didn't the US have one set before?
2. Wouldn't the ban help the bar owners increase profit because more people are against smoking?
3. Why would the ban affect the bar owners that much when they can get a waiver?
Galenet

Seppa, N. "Smoke out: bartenders' lungs appreciate ban.(Scotland bans smoking in public places)." Science News 170.16 (Oct 14, 2006): 243(1). Student Resource Center - Gold. Thomson Gale. Centennial High School (MD). 12 Dec. 2006
.

Third Artifact: Effects of Smoking on Teens

After reading facts on smoking from http://www.cdc.gov, I have learned that teens who smoke have lower lung growth and are more likely to use harder drugs.

"Teens who smoke are three times more likely to use alcohol, eight times more likely to use marijuana, and twenty-two times more likely to use cocaine," as stated by the Surgeon General, from 1994.

Teen smokers are affected by their surroundings. If teens have parents who smoke, they are more likely to smoke and become addicted to nicotine. Also, teens who start smoking early, continue to smoke throughout their adult years and are more likely to develop lung cancer and other smoking related cancers.

"The resting heart rates of young adult smokers are two to three beats per minute faster than nonsmokers."
"Smoking hurts young people's physical fitness in terms of both performance and endurance—even among young people trained in competitive running."
"Teenage smokers suffer from shortness of breath almost three times as often as teens who don't smoke..."

Smoking affects the heart and lungs. The tar from the cigarettes impact how the lung functions. The tar from the cigarettes can cause the lungs to funtion at a much lower rate and can lead to lung cancer. Also, because the heart has to work harder, the heart can become overworked and fail, causing a heart attack.

Questions:
1. What makes the smokers try to take on harder drugs?
2. If teenagers know these statistics, would they still try smoking?
3. Does their surroundings affect their habits, too?

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 9 Jan. 2007 .


parents-smoke
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2005. 12 December 2006

Ist artifact

The site is mainly about the causes of lung cancer. Smoking tobacco leads to more than 8 of 10 cases of lung cancer. The longer a person smokes, the higher the chance of getting lung cancer. If they stop smoking before the lung cancer can develop, the lung tissue returns to normal. Second hand smoke is also dangerous. Spouses of smokers have a 30% higher chance of developing lung cancer than spouses of non- smokers. There are low tar cigarettes, but there is no evidence of the cigarettes reducing the risk of lung cancer. Also, when it comes to smoking and family history, are both risk factors, but smoking is the only controllable factor.

http://www.cancer.org helped me understand who is affected by smokers. The site also gave me statistics I can use in my paper.

Questions:
1. How long does it take for lung cancer to take effect?
2. Why do smokers continue smoking when they know cigarettes can kill them?
3. What is the most dangerous element in cigarettes?

American Cancer Society. 6 December 2006

Self Evaluation

1. My social issue is smoking and how smoking effects the enviroment. Smoking manifests itself in society through people. The people who smoke contribute to this issue. There are a few solutions that may or may not work to solve this issue. One is to ban smoking from public places so people around smokers don't suffer as well. Another is to eliminate the companies who make cigarettes. I have read in the newspaper that there will be a law passed that prohibits smoking in public places which will start as early as next year. This law will be helpful to those who are opposed to smoking, but bar owners would not favor this law. One way that the bars could change this is to sign for a waiver. This way, the people oppose the law and those who are for it are content.

2. Of my eight artifacts, I found the topics of the 'Smoking Ban in China'(1) and 'Effects of Smoking on Teens'(2) most informative to me. The 'Smoking Ban in China' showed me how much the restaurant owners were going to be affected. This artifact showed me both sides of this issue and if I agree with the ban in China. Also, 'Effects of Smoking on Teens' taught me how teens like me are drawn into smoking. I have never understood why people start smoking at such a young age, but this artifact helped me understand why. The one artifact that surprised me was the 'Smoking and Teens Fact Sheet'(3) because I had no idea that teenagers smoked that much or started smoking in their early teens.

MLA
1.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 9 Jan. 2007 .
2. Dikky Sinn. "Hong Kong begins year with ban on public smoking." The Boston Globe. 1 Jan 2007.
3.American Lung Association. 22 Jan.2007

3. The media portrays smoking as unhealthy and as a danger. In the past few years, smoking ads have not been permitted on television. The media influences perception because the public already knows the dangers of smoking, but the media shows commercials that tell stories of smoker's lives. I recently saw the movie, "Thank You for Smoking".The movie portrays Nick Naylor who works as a lobbyist for a smoking research company as deceiving. When he is faced with a question, he doesn't answer the question straight on, but he tries to prove the prove the other side wrong. Nick Naylor doesn't explain how his side of the matter is right, but he side tracks and doesn't answer the question directly. Nick naylor came up with an idea to sell smoking to the public by hiring celebrities to smoke in a movie. This is what happens in real life. When a company wants to sell their product, they hire a well known celebrity and pay them to endorse their product.

4. I found the majority of my information on the internet. The research method that worked best for me was searching theough the databases and finding topics about smoking. I found the using the internet easy because I am already familiar with the search engines and much of the information I know about, I find on the internet. I also found this difficult because I could not just take information i find on the internet and publish it, I had to do more research on the credibility of the source. The resources I did not fully utilize is the media, which can be a main resource. I could have researched how the media, such as movies, music and the news portrays smoking. To improve the quality of my research, I could have represented both sides os smoking more. For example, I could have researched more on the restaurant owners who could be affected by the ban as much as I did on the actual ban.

5. At the beginning of this project, I was one-sided. I only concentrated on the evils of smoking and cigarette companies. I knew that the tar in cigarettes and tobacco caused lung cancer, but I now know it is much more than that. If the cigarette companies were destroyed, the workers would lose their jobs. I will continue to inform the people in my life about the dangers of smoking and how it can affect their lives.