Imagine this: You are a 15-year old sophomore in high school. Smoking looks like the "cool" thing to do. Everyone else is doing it. You become a regular smoker due to peer pressure. Twenty years later, you are married and have a son. You are still a regular smoker. Ten years later, your wife dies of lung cancer. You find out that she contracted the disease from second hand smoking. She died because of you. Think back. Was that first cigarette worth it? Was "looking cool" really worth it?
          In America alone, there are approximately 46 million smokers. Most of them started at a young age. According to recent studies, 13% of middle school students and 25% of high school students smoke some type of tobacco. Cigarettes and smoking have disastrous results and consequences. Diseases are contracted and lives are lost. Lungs are wasted and hearts are shriveled. Only in a smoke-free home can there be healthy, wise, and respectable members.
          "A smoke-free home is a healthy home." According to Oxford dictionary, healthy is defined as having good health and not likely to be ill. This is a complete contradiction of the description of a smoker's lifestyle. Cigarettes contain over 4000 chemical compounds including cyanide, ammonia, methanol, and acetylene which is used as fuel for welding torches, and carbon monoxide which reduces the level of oxygen in the body. Smoking also causes various diseases including cancer in the bladder, pancreas, liver, kidney, and stomach. It also causes lung cancer and emphysema. The most common disease among smokers is heart disease. According to a recent study, 1,690,000 smokers die from cardiovascular disease each year. In the U.S. alone, tobacco causes 1 in 5 deaths. The main ingredient in cigarettes, a drug called nicotine, reduces blood flow to legs and feet and constricts arteries. These harmful effects and negative statistics do not project the image of a healthy home.
           "A smoke-free home is a wise home." Wisdom means different things to different people of different cultures. The Oxford dictionary defines wisdom as the ability to make sensible decisions. If this is indeed true, wisdom is a quality that most smokers lack. Smoking not only harms the smoker but it also hurts their family, friends, and anyone who is around them when they smoke Whenever smoke touches a living cell, it does harm. Non-smokers married to smokers have more than 20% greater chance of death from a coronary heart disease than non-smokers married to non-smokers. The effects of second hand smoking are more destructive and harmful with decreasing age. Therefore, children are at most risk. Children exposed to second hand smoking have twice the risk of developing asthma and allergies compared to children unexposed to second hand smoking. A home with members who potentially risk the lives of their loved ones through their habit of smoking does not possess the quality of wisdom, regardless of the word's many varying definitions among cultures.
            "A smoke-free home is a respectable home." According to the Oxford dictionary, respectable means considered by society to be acceptable. Smokers possess neither the physical nor mental qualities of a respectable person. Smoking causes smelling and staining of hair. It causes oral cavity and foul breath. It also causes blindness and the developing of cataracts. Teeth become yellow and eyes become bloodshot. Smokers also tend to have paler skin and more wrinkles. Smoking also destroys brain tissue. A home filled with such smokers who look unhealthy, unclean, and unacceptable is not a respectable home.
             There are many different resources available at no cast to help smokers to quit. Manuals, counseling, classes, and therapy are all available resources. Quitting smoking will greatly reduce your health risks. In just three months, your circulation improves and lung function increases. In five years, your risk of stroke is equal to a non-smoker's risk of stroke.
             A smoke-free home is healthy, wise, and respectable. It benefits the health of everyone that spends time with the smoker. It is never too late to quit smoking, and it is never too late to create a healthy, wise, and respectable environment for you and you family. Smoking can be stopped. It's only a bad habit, like all other bad habits, that can be overcome with practice and patience. A smoke-free environment is an essential part of a healthy, wise, and respectable home.