How to Deal with Stress: Without a Cigarette

The University of Alabama has been ranked as one of the top fifty public Universities in America, mostly because of the hard working faculty and students. The University also strives to be the best in such subjects as the fundamentals of business, law and medicine. But along with these great academic expectations comes immense pressure to succeed. For some students, academics come easy, but many others need to pack in countless study hours just to stay afloat. College is a stressful new environment for most students and releasing that stress can lead to bad habits; students use drinking, partying, drugs, and smoking cigarettes to cope with the stressors they face being in college. Many students over the age of 19 begin smoking to test their new found freedom and see smoking as a relaxing habit that effectively releases stress. But what needs to come to the student’s attention is how cigarettes can shorten their lives, and how secondhand smoke endangers their fellow students. Cigarettes are not only detrimental to a growing student’s health, but they can cost thousands of dollars a year, and are the leading cause of lung cancer.

The University of Alabama campus has been taken over by smokers; people smoke everywhere from outside lecture halls, among the football stands, and everywhere on the sidewalks. These smokers’ irritating, noxious smoke wafts from the cancer stick right into the faces of anyone walking behind them. It’s like they don’t even realize that there are others around them who don’t smoke and don’t appreciate the toxic fumes. The motivations behind smoking are confusing and sometimes irrational; using their newfound freedom in college, relieving the stress of daily life, or simply trying to look older and cooler are among the reasons young people pick up this nasty habit. Even if there are deeper reasons behind their compulsion, the students who smoke need to realize that it endangers them greatly, including their fellow students walking by. Smoking related-diseases kill one in ten adults globally, which equates to about four million people. By 2030, if current trends continue, smoking will kill one in six people (Martin). Cigarette use is a trend that will eventually take over someone’s life if not stopped. The scary truth is that smoking statistics show that every eight seconds, someone dies from tobacco use; that translates to approximately five million deaths annually (World Health Organization). Don't become another statistic just to kick nerves or make you look hip because in reality, there are cooler ways to die.

Every time that you light up a cigar, or a cigarette, you’re wasting your money. The average smoker blows through a pack of cigarettes every day. Every one of those five dollar packs eventually adds up to about $2,400 every year; twenty four hundred dollars that could’ve been spent on the price tag of college. The cost of smoking not only affects the customer buying that pack, but it also costs the other state citizens their money as well. The state Medicaid program's total health expenditures caused by tobacco use total around 238 million dollars. Even if you don’t smoke, you’re still paying the medical bills of those who do. Smokers both drain their health and fellow citizens’ bank accounts; the annual state health care costs from tobacco use equal about 1.49 billion dollars. Smoking can affect everyone not only medically but out of pocket as well. (Gentle)

According to Alabama football tradition, the winning team’s students enjoy a victory smoke on the third Saturday in October. Sitting in shock and awe at this year’s Tennessee game as Terrance Cody made the “Rocky Block”, Alabama students lit their cigars to celebrate the victory. But this means every person in the student section who doesn’t smoke automatically inhales the smoke of the cigars. Along with the noxious secondhand smoke come the massive amounts of cigarette and cigar butts generated by the celebrating students. Trash reciprocals are placed through out the entire campus for people to put their trash, but instead the students choose to liter by throwing them on the streets. One fraternity brother walking through the quad stated,” I don’t have to clean it up. We have to give the faculty something to do.” This is unfortunately a common mentality among students. What does this say about our fellow students? Obviously if those students don’t respect our campus, they especially don’t care anything about the health of others either. Smoking is not only disrespectful to us non-smokers, but also destroys our campus grounds and enrages the faculty forced to clean up the resulting mess.

Smoking on UA’s campus has been detrimental to its appearance, harmful to both smokers and non-smokers, and annoying for anyone who has ever had smoke blown in their face. Using it as a copout is just a pathetic way of saying I can’t deal with the pressures of life. If you have to light up to get by, realize that you’re hurting both yourself and the others around you. Have respect not only in yourself but for your fellow peers as well. Smoking isn’t the answer to getting by, try to look at as something that can damage your life and your health permanently. Look at it as something that cannot only harm you, but the environment around you. Look at it as a waste of money not just out of your pocket, but every other tax payer’s as well. There are other ways to enjoy life, don’t light up and burn your life away just to be cool.

Works Cited

Global Smoking Stastics. Terry Martin, 28 Jan. 2007. Web. 6 Nov. 2009. .

Smoking Statistics. World Health Organize, 2009. Web. 6 Nov. 2009. .

Cost of Cigarettes on the Way Up. Elizabeth Gentle, 6 Apr. 2009. Web. 6 Nov. 2009. .