Writing Feedback /
Argument essay, Smoking in public [7]
I am in the 9th grade and we have been assigned an argument essay for my English Honors class. For every fallacy my teacher finds she deducts 10 points. So as you can see I need some help finding these fallacies! If you could read over it and post any fallacies or any other tips or changes in the essay would be great! Thanks P.S I'm not entirely finished so any ideas would be greatly appreciated!
The argument I will be disputing is "should smoking be allowed in public places?" Smoking is one of the most deadly things a person can do to themselves and to others. Smoking is currently allowed in most public places and I believe this should be changed for a plethora of reasons. First, and most simply, smoking harms your body to a staggering degree. Second, smoking harms the innocent people around with the secondhand smoke from the cigarette. Secondhand smoke is the smoke given off by the cigarettes of others. Lastly, smoking is very harmful to the environment. Not only from the butts of the cigarettes, but from the chemicals and smoke being released into the atmosphere. A ban on public smoking would be both beneficial to smokers, and others around them, and also for the environment.
As stated before, smoking is harmful to others and a ban would cause non-smokers to not be exposed to the deadly chemicals in cigarettes. In doing so, this would reduce the amount of diseases non-smokers would have acquired. Here is an interesting quote from a few experts, "According to Barbeau, Osinubi, Sorensen, and Williams, for every seven smokers who die from smoking, at least one non-smoker dies from cigarette smoke." (Celestin, Paragraph 1) Surprising isn't it?
Smoking is not only harmful to people but to the environment as well. One of the biggest contributors to littering is cigarettes butts. "According to Keep America Beautiful, Inc. smokers litter about 4.5 trillion cigarette butts yearly." (Celestin, Paragraph 2) Because a ban would prohibit smoking in public, there would be less littering in and around public areas. Not to mention the amount of fires that would be reduced by carelessly thrown cigarette butts.
Non-smokers are constantly exposed to secondhand smoke and shouldn't have to be if they don't want to. Non-smokers do not have to not be exposed to cigarette smoke because they have a constitutional right to a healthy environment. Putting people at risk by being in a smoke-filled environment violates this right.
A ban on smoking in public would cause an overall decrease in smoking as a whole, thus, decreasing the number of unwanted disease among innocent people. It would also greatly decrease the amount of pollution to our environment. Smoking is an economic and social burden for just about everyone and should be stopped in all public places. A ban wouldn't harm anyone in anyway shape or form, only protect people and the environment around us.