Air pollution or smoking: Which is the greater cancer risk?

Smoking

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by D.A. Lordend

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Air pollution or smoking: Which is a greater cancer risk? When this question is asked at first, the answer seems obvious. Smoking is a greater cancer risk. One thing I am sure of is that air pollution, if it is concentrated or strong can cause surely cause cancer. I know this because of many people I have seen cough ruefully after putting the cigarette, a small cylinder which carries immense amounts of pain, in their mouth. Some reasons for doing this foolish act is usually to look good, sheer curiosity, mere stupidity or ignorance, alleviate stress, or peer pressure. However, cigarette does NOT make anyone look good. It gives you rancid breath which could probably attract more flies than a garbage truck. A cigarette is like a rose; it looks beautiful, but when you take a hold of it you get cut by the thorns on its stem. Just like a rose, a cigarette may seem "cool", but when you smoke it gives you various lung diseases. It should NOT be taken to relieve pain or stress. People should not smoke because out of sheer curiosity, ignorance, or plain stupidity. People should not say, "I am just doing this one time", unless they have a REALLY strong mind. Cigarettes and other drugs can usually get you addicted in seven seconds or less. Above all things, smoking gives you cancer-not a good thing. Smoking can also give person painful rumors, and other diseases. Some people believe that if they smoke a cigarette a day, then nothing will happen. THEY ARE WRONG. They are putting themselves at risk for a tumor, cancer, or another agonizing disease. People pay a gas station most or even all their pocket money, daily, for a pack of noxious cigarettes; then they pay the doctor thousands of dollars to get their tumor removed. It sounds pretty funny, but people pay others to get cancer. How stupid is that? Other people think that if somebody else is smoking around them, it does not matter; the truth is that it does matter; in fact second hand smoking is more dangerous or deadly than first hand smoking. Every breath you inhale is like breathing in poison. If people would care about their money, health, or their loved ones; they would be willing to sacrifice their silly habit and give up smoking. This should make people think before they spend $4.65 on a cheap pack of cigarettes, but the problem is that more people are worrying about stopping air pollution. Once again we come to question, "Which is a greater cancer risk: air pollution or smoking?"

Air pollution is not a threat, and probably won't be until towards the end of this century. Another thing about air pollution is that, it is spread out all over the Earth. A great factor involved in getting cancer by smoking is that a person has to choose to smoke the cigarette. On the contrary, one person can do little about air pollution because to stop it people would have to stop driving certain vehicles, stop burning coal, etc. I know that air pollution cannot be stopped just by one person, but I really know that people can surely avoid first hand or second hand smoking. It really seems that smoking is a much greater cancer risk than air pollution, no matter how you look at it.

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