Local Police Representative Position Paper

Everyone regarded of their social class requires good health. Tobacco has been revealed to cause many health problems because apart from nicotine tobacco also contain various dangerous chemicals. Therefore regardless of how individual smoke tobacco, it is dangerous to health. Additionally, all tobacco substance contains additional harmful chemicals which are dangerous such as acetone and carbon monoxide. From studies, it has been proven that tobacco not only affects lungs but also can affect your entire body (Peacock, 2018). Therefore lifting of the approved decree for specially designated places for tobacco use which was enforced in 2017 in Azerbaijan should not take place. The policy is very critical in controlling smoking and also abide by the World Health Organization smoking policies and treaties. Therefore, as a police representative, I wish to oppose the lift.

To oppose this lift, I wish to state that; smoking tobacco is dangerous to everyone health. First, it results in lung damage and cancer. Studies have revealed that cigarettes smoking impact lung health because the smoke contains a heavy variety of additional chemicals other than pure nicotine. Additionally, smoking has been linked to the increased development of lung cancer (Miller et al., 2019). Moreover, the CDC urges that almost nine out of ten lung cancer deaths is related to tobacco use (He et al., 2018). Besides, lungs cancer create a greater risk of developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disorders. Therefore, as a police officer with the role of protecting the lives, I suggest that lifting the ban will affect the lives of direct smokers and indirect smokers, therefore, meaning my role and the whole police force to protect life will not be carried out as required.

Secondly, in 2008, the world launched an important set of policies; MPOWER Tobacco Control Policy. Policy main role is to; regulate tobacco use, assisting the user to quit the use of tobacco, protecting people from tobacco effects among other roles. World Health Organization (2019), state that, smoking and use of tobacco leads to the death of up to half of global smokers. Another policy is the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control which has seen counties increase in the adoption of measures to reduce tobacco use and consumption. In this policy, 180 countries committed. Therefore, it’s the role of every state to abide by treaties and international policies and treaties, however, it is the work of the police to enforce the policies at the national level. Therefore, lifting the ban and allowing people to smoke anywhere would be against the international health policies which our country committed to and my role to enforce these policies will be impacted.

Moreover, regardless of being a police, I am also a member of the community, I have relatives and as studies reveal, tobacco smoking is dangerous to both active and passive smokers. As per the World Health Organization (2019), smoking and use of tobacco lead to the death of up to half of global smokers. Globally, it leads to the death of almost eight million individuals yearly. Moreover, more than seven million deaths are for direct tobacco users while 1.2 million deaths occur due to secondary smokers being exposed to tobacco use (He et al., 2018). Therefore, from these statistics, I believe that lifting the ban will not only affect the life of smokers but also the lives of everyone in our state. Therefore, I can conclude that smoking is more than terrorism attack since it results in more death globally than terrorism. Therefore, careless smoking should not be allowed as it is a threat to every one of us.

Furthermore, public smoking exposes children to harmful smoking behaviour. According to “monkey see, monkey do”, Model behaviour, young people learn best by observing the adults’ behaviour and copying it (He et al., 2019). They learn both bad and good behaviour from what they watch around them. Therefore, lifting the ban will expose children to smoking and once they adopt the behaviour, and from the fact that they lack money to buy cigarettes, this will result to increased crimes which are a burden to the nation.

Therefore, as a police officer, I wish to oppose the lifting of the approved decree for specially designated places for tobacco use which was enforced in 2017.

Looking for further insights on Links Between Gang Membership and Mental Health? Click here.

References

He, Y., Shang, C., Huang, J., Cheng, K.W. and Chaloupka, F.J., 2018. Global evidence on the effect of point-of-sale display bans on smoking prevalence. Tobacco control, 27(e2), pp.e98-e104.

He, Y., Zhang, J., Zhou, Y. and Yang, Z., 2019. “Monkey See, Monkey Do?” The Effect of Construal Level on Consumers’ Reactions to Others’ Unethical Behaviour. Journal of Business Ethics, 156(2), pp.455-472.

Miller, K.D., Goding Sauer, A., Ortiz, A.P., Fedewa, S.A., Pinheiro, P.S., Tortolero‐Luna, G., Martinez‐Tyson, D., Jemal, A. and Siegel, R.L., 2018. Cancer statistics for hispanics/latinos, 2018. CA: a cancer journal for clinicians, 68(6), pp.425-445.

Peacock, A., Leung, J., Larney, S., Colledge, S., Hickman, M., Rehm, J., Giovino, G.A., West, R., Hall, W., Griffiths, P. and Ali, R., 2018. Global statistics on alcohol, tobacco and illicit drug use: 2017 status report. Addiction, 113(10), pp.1905-1926.

World Health Organization, 2019. Tobacco. Newsroom. Retrieved 3 November 2019: from https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/tobacco