A World I Dare to Imagine
The world I dare to imagine is a world where every human being can live a healthy life. Health is definitely the most precious of the achievements that we have reached so far as a humanity – at least in certain parts of the world. Every other issue becomes pointless in front of health problems, therefore, as long as we possess good health, we must defend it as fiercely as we can. In the Western World (i.e. Europe and North America) the general level of health is rather high, especially compared to the poorest countries of the world. There, billions of people cannot even afford basic healthcare and many of them are forced to die in the most absurd ways. I'm extremely glad for the way that I was brought up by my family where my health and that of my brother was always the most important matter to care about. Thus, I have never been able throughout my life to conceive that so many young people around me would take up smoking, regardless whether it’s about cigarettes like in Italy or Juuls like in the United States.
Most people in countries such as Italy and the United States are likely to benefit from good health before starting smoking. As a result, taking up this bad habit seems to me like throwing health directly in the bin. On purpose. I feel this is unfair both towards yourself, towards your community and towards those people who cannot afford access to basic healthcare and who would give anything for good health. Smoking not only increases the chances of contracting a wide variety of disease which can eventually cause death, but it represents an enormous burden for society. Just cigarette smoking is responsible for more than 480,000 deaths per year in the United States. What’s more, it results in more than 41,000 deaths from secondhand smoke exposure and more than $300 billion in expenses for treatments against smoking-related illnesses each year in the United States.
Whereas solving the issue of healthcare access in the developing world is a multi-faceted problem that is still far from being solved, I think that preventing young people from taking up the bad habit of smoking in developed countries is much more straightforward and feasible to solve. This is the reason why, when I first brainstormed to find a way of making the world a better place, I immediately thought about a project called “Mission Breath”, aimed at raising awareness about smoking and its related issues. It will involve both a program focused on preventing adolescents from taking up smoking and a system that will help smokers quit smoking. Ultimately, this project will result in a business producing sophisticated electronic cigarettes that will facilitate the process of detox from smoking by creating a device that releases a flavorful nicotine-containing tobacco vapor but without burning the tobacco.
Hi Lorenzo,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate you writing this article, and providing so many statistics to back up your arguments. A lot of people fail to recognize how lucky they are to have good health, and they do throw it all away very often! I am highly concerned with health and the health of the people that surround me. A lot of young people think that they are invincible, or that nothing will ever happen to them.
I am especially drawn to your part in this article about JUULs. People do not yet know what the health implications are going to be as a result of JUULing. It is scary to think that there can be negative effects that JUULing has on our bodies, yet people do not know them yet, and wont know until it's too late. It will probably look like when people discovered the negative health effects of smoking cigarettes!
My question about your last section is, does still providing nicotine to the user solve the problem? I believe the solution involves stopping the initial addiction within the community, but at the same time, these devices aimed at helping people stop smoking really only provide other ways for younger non-addicted kids to turn to smoking. Essentially, they are gateway drugs that initialize addiction and then these people move on to other more toxic substances. How would you create a solution that keeps people from starting smoking, while weaning people off of their addiction to tobacco and other substances? Just some food for thought. I am curious to see what ideas you come up with, thank you for the informative article!
-KT Francel
Hi Lorenzo,
ReplyDeleteVery interesting read I like how you focused on a feasible problem that you could have an immediate impact on. I'm sure you know but cigarette usage in Europe is insane, it's way more prevalent than in America. When I was in Split, Croatia I remember seeing a young girl (no older than 17) go thru 6 cigarettes just with her morning cappuccino. Everywhere you look people are smoking cigs - with dinner, with wine, when your stressed, when you want to celebrate, it literally is a part of the culture and the way they function. The crazies thing to me is that even tho people in europe smoke cigs an insane amount more than Americans, they still are healthier. It's probably because of the shitty american diet. Anyways, I like your idea. We need to educate the young on how unhealthy it is for you in the long term. I am confused because at the end you said you are going to offer a flavored nicotine device, isn't that exactly what the JUUL is? The JUUL does not burn tobacco so you don't get any of the carcinogens that you get from smoking.
Hey Lorenzo,
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing that people know all the statistics surrounding cigarette use and all the health implications, yet they still continue to smoke. In your last section, it seems like the product you would like to develop is what Juul was originally trying to be. While nicotine itself is highly addictive, I think I read somewhere that alone it is no worse for you than caffeine. But all the additives and chemicals make smoking horrible for you. Maybe your product could have nicotine with very little additives as a "healthier" alternative to Juuls and cigarettes which are loaded with chemicals. Great idea and I'm looking forward to your pitch.
Brendan
An important thing to keep in mind when deciding to try to reduce smoking rates is to not infringe on rights. For example, outlawing the substance would be ridiculous and met with intense scrutiny, like the prohibition. Another example to avoid is that of the DARE program in the US, which was highly unsuccessful in preventing drug use in our generation. I think that educating people and helping them out of addiction with an understanding mentality would be a far more effective method to achieve your goals. Simply put, shaming people or simply telling them NOT to do something doesn't work.
ReplyDeleteYour idea for reducing smoking sounds a lot like the JUUL or similar devices. An alternative system to deliver nicotine with less toxins to prevent diseases like lung and mouth cancer. You can put people on a system, starting the nicotine levels high and gradually reducing them to 0mg as time goes on.