Cheyenne Mallery
Ms. McKoy
English II
October 17, 2012
Don’t Smoke your Success Away
It all started about 14 years before I was born. My mom started smoking at the age of 9. That is like a 7 year old doing bills for their parents. It is way out of their age range. It was not her mindset to smoke. She just had a rough life so she said that smoking was one of her escapes from the world. My dad, my cousins, aunts, uncle, brother, and mom all smoked throughout high school. They we not very successful either. Neither my parents, nor my uncle went to college and my brother goes to CCU, but he is slacking off. This led me to the thought that maybe cigarettes could be affecting their mind. Could it be the chemicals, or just the cravings distracting them? Smoking is a nightmare that some people just cannot wake up from. In some cases, it is like a horror story about being a failure. Smoking does affect adolescences (in 9th-12th grade) academically because of chemicals, and the cravings.
Cigarettes have extremely harmful and disgusting chemicals. They are long cylinder shaped pieces of special paper filled with tobacco and thousands of chemicals. “Some of these chemicals include benzene, formaldehyde, ammonia, acetone, tar, nicotine, carbon monoxide, arsenic, and hydro cyanide.” You would not think that you are smoking toilet cleaner, nail polish remover, insecticide, car exhaust fumes, rat poison, and gas chamber poison (Health Education Authority, table 1)! I think that is just sickening. Who would want to put those in their body? I have always known about the synthetics used in these cancer sticks because of National Red Ribbon Week. When somebody asks me what R.R.W. is, I say that it is drug awareness week. Cigarettes may not be drugs like cocaine but it is a major issue that teens need to be aware of. I believe that if teens were taught the effects of smoking on the brain, not just on the lungs, they would be more conscious of their grades. “Not all cigarettes are made alike” (Falco, 2). I personally have noticed this too. Throughout the years, I have learned more and more about this product. Knowing that there are substances in these products, why are people ignorant enough to smoke them? Have they not considered the fact that these harmful and possibly deathly chemicals could be ruining their brains? Obviously not!
I do know that some people that smoke said that they get cravings in class, so they become distracted. When I asked around, many teens agreed with this statement. What if the cravings are causing bad grades? Could they be too powerful to avoid and ignore? To me, it sounds like these cravings are like homework; you cannot get around it. According to Discovery Health, smokers, including high school students, can relieve the cravings not by smoking, but by physical distractions. “Replace the act of smoking by chewing carrot sticks, using a tooth pick or squeezing a stress ball to help simulate the oral or manual act of smoking long enough to get through a craving” (Sailor, 1-2). I know that in school, students are too occupied by work to do anything else. If adolescence are too busy to even lift up their pencils from their paper, then how are they supposed to relieve their cravings? They do not have time to be active in the sense of cravings. Therefore, they will become distracted from the surroundings and lose focus.
I recently conducted a survey at Early College High School. Question one was asking what grade the student is in. The second question asked if the student does or has smoked during their high school years. The third and fourth questions are tied together. Three asks if you think that smoking can affect you academically. If you said yes for three, you move onto four. Four says, “If you said yes, what could be a possible factor?” “Thirty-two percent of the 38 students surveyed claimed that they do or have smoked during high school” (ECHS Survey Statistics, slide 5). This percentage does not sound high to teens but 100% of the teens are smoking underage; the age limit is 18 years old. I think that if about 16% of those adolescence who smoke saw my blog, they might realize that they are ruining their future. “79% of the survey takers believe that smoking does affect you academically” (ECHS Survey Statistics, slide 7). Thankfully, this number is fairly high. Due to their choice to say yes, they agree with me. Many of the high school students who claimed the smoking cannot affect you academically were smokers themselves. I have come to the conclusion that 99% of adolescent smokers do not want to consider consequences; one of the consequences being low grades. I came to this conclusion because when I asked my peers that do smoke if they believed that smoking can affect them academically, they argued with me that it does nothing to you.
Smoking can affect the teenagers academically due to chemicals and cravings. There are so many teens that smoke their future away and fail. If they knew that smoking could hurt their grades, would the still smoke? The world may never know, but I think that they would think about quitting. I believe that all of my research can encourage adolescence to focus on what lies ahead in life; the future. College is a chance to become an expert for the career of your dreams. If you smoke it way, you will not have a successful life.
