Smoking tobacco is becoming increasingly popular among young people with potentially serious effects on their health. Explain some reasons for this problem and suggest some possible solution.

Smoking is an expensive habit which pollutes the environment and carries a serious health risk, yet a

third

of the men in the world smoke. It is

also

a sad fact that one in five teenagers take up the habit when they are as young as 11. Of course, there is one interest group, the tobacco industry, which is more than happy with

this

situation, since its profits depend on our addiction to cigarettes. These statistics are particularly depressing because the link between smoking and cancer, heart disease and other serious illnesses has been known for many years. We must

also

remember that apart from harming the individual, smoking represents a huge cost to society. The money we spend on treating smoking-related disease could be used for much better purposes,

such

as helping to feed the world’s poor or paying for medical research. So why, despite all the evidence, do people still smoke? The obvious answer is that cigarettes are highly addictive so that it can be extremely difficult to give up. Another answer is the power of peer pressure, especially among young people. In my view, the most important thing is to discourage people from starting to smoke, and we could do

this

by increasing the tax on tobacco and banning cigarette advertising. I

also

feel that people who want to quit should be given as much advice and support as possible. In conclusion, I believe that we should do everything we can to reduce the number of smokers in society.

However

, it is not enough to provide information about health risks, we

also

need to use a variety of strategies to tackle the problem.