Word: smoked
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...People smoke in train stations and airports, in restaurants, in hotel rooms, and on street corners. Walking through the city, I find myself holding my breath every few minutes to avoid inhaling a cloud of carcinogens. In many public areas, it's the non-smokers, instead of the smokers, who have to seek refuge in specially designated areas. While taking the elevator, for example, I noticed that the 11-story hotel I stayed at has a special “smoke-free” floor. Shouldn’t this be the other way around...
...What’s more troubling, however, is that few people seem to mind this rampant smoking. Despite the abundance of evidence documenting the ill effects of second-hand smoke, many people apparently still underestimate its danger. Recent surveys have shown that two-thirds of Chinese people think that smoking does “little to no harm,” while 60 percent do not know that smoking causes lung cancer, and 96 percent are not aware of the connection between smoking and heart disease...
...It’s unlikely that smoking’s popularity, especially among Chinese males (nearly three-fourths of whom smoke), will wane anytime in the near future. A more realistic, yet equally urgent goal would be to safeguard the health of non-smokers by restricting smoking in public places...
...prevalence of public smoking in China, however, deflates this argument. People can no longer choose to simply avoid going to places where people smoke, because so few of these smoke-free establishments exist. Moreover, people don’t always have the luxury of working in a smoke-free environment—these employees shouldn’t have to inhale cigarette smoke everyday in order to get a paycheck...
...Enacting a nationwide smoking ban in all public places is a sound policy that would benefit all countries, not just China. In the U.S., where only about 20 percent of adults smoke, the problem of second-hand smoke exposure is perhaps not as readily apparent as it is in China. Nevertheless, more states should follow the example set by California and New York and countries like France and England, where smoking is banned in most, if not all, public places. In addition to improving public health in that specific area, these bans raise awareness to the serious and often underestimated...