I think, Cigarette should be banned in Indonesia

       Cigarettes are a dangerous thing. They have many negative effects to our lives. It could be our health, financial problems, environment issues, and other problems.  In Indonesia, cigarettes help the national economy. They give more chances to our farmers because as we know many people work as farmers. Because of this, tobacco and cloves, the main ingredients for cigarettes are planted in our country for. There are some people who disagree with this issue. They say that because of cigarettes, the jobless people finally have a place to work. For example, in cigarette factories. Even though they assume that it can help our economy, there are more serious problems that will occur because of it. Here are various reasons and problems why cigarettes should be banned in Indonesia.

Cigarettes smoking is dangerous for our health; especially our lungs and heart. Cigarettes consist of nicotine, carbon monoxide and tar which can damage our heart. These substances are very dangerous. Nicotine is an addictive drug which affects our brain and muscle activity. Nicotine in cigarettes can make our heart beat faster because it increases the production of adrenaline in our body and it can increase the blood pressure which causes heart attacks. Moreover, nicotine is the substance which is used as a bug killer. The next dangerous substance is carbon monoxide. It’s a dangerous gas which can replace the oxygen in our respiratory system. Because of that, if there’s a lot of it, our body will have a lack of oxygen so we’ll find it hard to breathe and it can make our heart beat faster. If cigarettes are banned in Indonesia, the Indonesian people will be healthier.

Implicitly, cigarettes affect economic issues. We have to spend around Rp.20.000 per pack of cigarettes. Imagine if we smoke around 1 pack per day? We would  have to spend Rp 600.000 per month. Next, imagine that we have been smoking for two years! How much money would be spent? It’s around Rp 14.400.000 for two years of smoking. If we quit smoking, we can save our money and get something we want. If we don’t smoke for a day, we can treat ourselves to have lunch at a restaurant. If we don’t smoke for a week, we can save around Rp 140.000 and we can get a new shirt. How about if we don’t smoke for a month? We will save around Rp 480.000 and a pair of brand-new shoes will definitely be possible to buy. And how about if we don’t smoke for a year? We will save around Rp 6.000.000 and we can possibly buy a new iPhone. We could even buy a new motorbike for the price of smoking for two years!

Another big cost of cigarette smoking is the cost when we are affected by  diseases which caused by smoking.  We need to pay a lot money for medical treatment if we are hospitalized.

The other serious problem is cigarette smoking can affect the younger generation. There is a paradigm that smoking is cool among the teenagers. They might think the people who smoke cigarette will look cool. They usually see this in movies or around them. Young people seem to imitate the habits of older people, so they could imitate the bad habits too. We can say that many senior citizens are smokers and smoking is a bad habit which is copied by the younger generation. Another matter that may occur if young people smoke is that it can decrease their brain performance. This in turn could affect our quality of education. If teenagers can’t think and learn well, there will be no qualified people in the future. By banning cigarettes in Indonesia, surely, our teenagers will be better physically, mentally and also do better in school.

The global impact cigarette smoking will have concerns environmental issues. The toxins emitted from cigarettes cause pollution of our environment. Each time you smoke a cigarette, chemicals are released into the atmosphere, polluting the air. The chemicals can harm our atmospheric layers. The carbon monoxide gas which is produced by cigarettes can be the most dangerous chemical. It can thin the Ozone (O₃) layer. If the ozone’s layer keep decreasing, global warming will be worse. This in turn adds to pollution of the air, destruction of forests by starting bush fires, or the killing of marine life. Another reason why cigarettes may affect our environment can be seen in Australia. Besides the gas of the cigarette, cigarette butts can also be very harmful for our environment. In Australia, this is a big problem. The fact is that nearly 7 billion butts of cigarette aren’t disposed of properly. This is extremely bad because the chemicals in the butt can affect marine life. It can affect the water quality and can be deadly to marine life. As we know, Indonesia is covered by forest and also borders the sea. We can save our environment to get a better life by stop smoking or better yet; by not starting!

Clearly, cigarette smoking causes many problems. It is very bad for every aspect of life. Cigarette can be dangerous and bad for our health, economic life, for young people and also for the environment. Because of these serious issues, it is also clear why cigarette smoking should be banned in Indonesia.