You’re sitting at a table in a restaurant beside a pair of smokers who both choose to have a cigarette after they’re done their meal. You try to enjoy your meal, but all you can taste and smell is the smoke, and it stings your eyes. Not only has your meal been ruined, but these uncaring people have unwittingly cut your life short.

Should smoking be banned in public areas? Yes, it should be, mainly for health reasons. In this essay, a list of chemicals in cigarette smoke will be provided, along with a few of the effects of secondhand smoke, and statistics involving secondhand smoke.

As a smoker takes a puff of their cigarette, they inhale about 15 of the smoke, also called mainstream smoke. When their cigarette sits in the ashtray and burns slowly it creates an average of 85 of the air in the room. This is also called side-stream smoke. This smoke affects everyone in the room, and, incidentally, is the more dangerous of the two kinds.

Smoke alone contains 3000 to 4000 chemicals, possibly more. According to Health Canada, 50 of these chemicals are known and identified carcinogens (cancer causing). Listed now are a few of these chemicals. Tar; made up of thousands of chemicals. Nicotine; used in insecticides and the additive element in cigarettes. Carbon monoxide; combines with hemoglobin to make carboxyhemoglobin which is useless for carrying oxygen. Benzene; the natural component of petroleum, is toxic and carcinogenic. Nickel; a chemical used in batteries. Ammonia; used in nitric acid, explosives, synthetic fibers, fertilizers, and household cleaners. Quinoline; used as a preservative for anatomical specimens and pesticides. Catechol; used in pesticides. Cadmium; used in batteries and electronics. Formaldehyde; used in plastics, fertilizers, foam insulators, preservatives, disinfectants and as an antibacterial goods additive. Acetone; this is nail polish remover. Acetic acid; this is vinegar. Arsenic; used as poison. Butane; used as cigarette lighter fluid. DDT, Ethanol, Hexamine, Hydrogen Cyanide (gas chamber poison), Methane, and the list goes on.

The above mentioned chemicals among the several others are the cause of many diseases and unpleasant side effects. Among them is lung cancer. In 1993, the USEPA reported that secondhand smoke was responsible for 3000 lung cancer deaths in non-smokers. It has also been estimated that, in Canada, each year, secondhand smoke causes 1100 to 7800 deaths including 300 lung cancer deaths. The American Lung Association reports that 20 of the population is at a risk of developing lung disease from secondhand smoke.

Coronary heart disease is also caused by inhalation of secondhand smoke. Women exposed to secondhand smoke have double the risk of having a heart attack. Though, the risk of a heart attack in smokers can be decreased by half within a year of quitting.

Other diseases and side effects produced from the inhalation of smoke are nasal sinus cancer, bronchitis and pneumonia, asthma, middle ear disease in children, allergies in children, emphysema, strokes, decreased pulmonary capacity, worsening of cystic fibrosis, nausea, dizziness, headaches, and nose, eye, and throat irritation. The effects of secondhand smoke begin only moments after inhalation. Within 5 minutes the aorta becomes stiffer. After 30 minutes, the blood platelets are activated, making the blood stickier and damaging the artery lining. In the same time, the ability of the vessels to dilate is reduced. After 2 hours, the heart rhythm is disturbed.

Now, just because you are sitting at a table next to two smokers inhaling their secondhand smoke doesn’t necessarily mean you will get some type of cancer of disease. It just means that you have a higher risk of getting them. So even if you’re not sick immediately, you are slowly dying with every breath, sitting at that table. So that means that those uncaring people are killing you, right? Isn’t that considered to be murder? Murder isn’t legal, and smoking in public areas shouldn’t be either.