The fact that I had to argue with someone, actually a couple of people, in class today about the fact that cigarettes are obviously more harmful for you than alcohol just really... it really makes me furious. Here's why. Beginning with the topic of addiction, which is more addictive? I'd go out on a limb here and say that most of you do or should understand that cigarettes contain nicotine which, as you should have been taught from 1st grade on, is a highly addictive substance. Alcohol has no actual addictive substance of the sort. Although, yes you can become addicted to it, just like you can anything else. However, if you have an alcohol addiction, it's because you have abused it and you do it in excess. Continuously. You don't have to abuse a cigarette to become addicted to it. If you were to smoke once, and drink one bottle of beer, we should all understand that you clearly have a higher chance of becoming addicted to the cigarette. Second of all, smoking has absolutely ZERO positive effects. It doesn't look cool, it's unhealthy no matter what, you will develop lung cancer if you smoke regularly, such as a pack a day (which I would have to say is more common than someone drinking a pack of beer a day), you're harming anyone around you by making them breathe in the same unhealthy substances, and it's very expensive. However, even though alcohol can have its negative affects on your body, such as affecting judgement, making you become seemingly incoherent, or not fit to drive, or hangovers, and alcohol poisoning, it's not going to kill you over time the way smoking will. If you get alcohol poisoning, you have got to understand that it is because you have drank in excess. Smoking continuously depletes your health throughout your life no matter what rate you smoke at. It's that simple. Also, in some cases, alcohol has uses. Such as treating contaminated water, or being the only thing available to drink that isn't contaminated, or clearing out sinus systems when you're sick. Third of all, if you're going to argue that you can't drink and drive but you can drive and smoke a cigarette, you know what that tells me? It tells me that you have dug deep through the infinite negatives of smoking to find the worst example of why it's not as harmful alcohol. Yes, you can drive drunk. You're harming the person next to you, across the road from you, anyone. I'm not saying I support that in the least. But you can talk someone out of driving after they've had a few beers, you can drive them home. There are ways out of that. Because they are not addicted to alcohol. But when you smoke and smoke and smoke for years because you have become addicted to smoking cigarettes, and you're a mom, and your family is continually breathing in smoke, that puts not only you, but them at risk of developing poor lungs and future breathing problems down the road, if not lung cancer as well. So, when we compare the two, cigarettes clearly can be more harmful for you. I would know. I've lived with it my whole life. I'm sorry that maybe your perfect parents don't smoke. And I'm sorry that you do. But you can bring someone down from their alcoholism. It's happened in my life. But were we able to get them to stop smoking? No. So, next time you go to argue a stupid point like this, you should keep your mouth shut. Because you don't know people as well as you think they do. And the person you're arguing with, if they're like me, is not going to be an idiot. So don't talk down to them, either. Oh, forgot to mention, cigarette smoking causes 6 million preventable deaths per year and kills roughly half of its users, while alcohol causes only 2.5 million. Also, people who read this, don't think I'm saying alcohol is great. I don't support drinking, either. But, I don't disapprove of it in the same way I do cigarette smoking.