Just As Cigarette Companies example essay topic

Teen Smoking Due to peer pressure, propaganda and availability, teenage smoking has been on the rise since 1986. Three thousand children start using tobacco each day because of the negative influences aimed toward them. Our President and the American Medical Association have taken action and have urged tobacco companies to do the same against under age smoking. Despite all positive actions against it, 'pack-a-day's smoking has risen thirty-three Percent in the past ten years among high school seniors. Throughout life children and adults are being persuaded to do or try something that goes against what they believe.

Peer pressure is common place in grade school, where children are constantly being exposed to smoking. Cigarettes are being smoked everywhere authority is not, during school or any other place kids congregate. Kids smoke because they want to feel like they 'fit in' and they want to rebel at the same time. 'U.S. News discussed the smoking issue with twenty teenagers from suburban Baltimore. Half were boys, half girls, and all were between the ages of fifteen and seventeen. Over more than four hours of conversation, it became clear that most teens smoked for two seemingly contradictory reasons: They want to be part of a peer group, while rejecting society and its norms. They want to reach out and rebel at the same time.

' (Roberts 38) Tobacco companies spend four billion dollars each year in advertising and promotional costs and claim there is no health risk. Six hundred thousand people die every year from smoking related illness, and others quit. Teenagers are not concerned about their health. The tobacco industry tries to appeal to the youth. The earlier kids get hooked, the more secure the companies " sales are.

'For the tobacco industry, these youngsters are an essential source of new customers. While cigarette makers deny it, advertising and promotion of youthful smoking clearly helped attract the attention of teens. The rate of youthful smoking dropped steadily from 1976 until 1984, then leveled off -- just as cigarette companies boosted promotional budgets. ' (Roberts 38) Availability of cigarettes for minors is easier than one might think. Children have access to tobacco products many ways. They could steal them from their parent or relative, and from a store.

Their family might also give them cigarettes, and the child smokes them with their friends. Kids can purchase smokes from an unguarded vending machine or gas station with ease. If that does not work they can ask someone old enough to buy packs for them. Although, it is just as easy to walk into any store and ask for them. Convenience stores are constantly getting fined for the underage sale of tobacco. If laws were more strict on the sale of tobacco to minors, then kids would smoke less.

The harder it is to get cigarettes, the less they will smoke them. It is clear from the surveys and articles published that teen smoking is on the rise. Teenage smoking is escalating at the rate of one million new recruits a year. Despite the work of governmental and independent agencies the tobacco industries continue to sell cigarettes at an alarming rate, due to peer pressure propaganda and availability of the product.

Something must be done to make people aware of the risks.