Text A.The Damage of Smoking

Smoking is very dangerous. Most young people smoke because their friends pressure them to do so. They may be copying their parents who smoke or other adults they respect. At one time this would have been accepted as normal. But in the past 30 years attitudes about smoking have changes. Smoking is now banned in many places so that other people don’t have to breathe in smoker’s shocking tobacco smoke.

Passive smoking, when you are breathing someone else’s smoke, can damage your health just like smoking can. Smoking becomes addictive very quickly, and it’s one of the hardest habits to break.

Take 1000 young people who smoke 20 cigarettes a day. A quarter of them will die from a disease caused by smoking. That’s 250 lives wasted! Only six of those 1000 teenagers will die in road accidents. So what is it in cigarette smoke that is harmful?

A chemical called nicotine is a substance that causes addiction. It is a stimulant that increases the pulse rate and a rise in the blood pressure. Cigarette smoke also contains tar – a major factor for causing cancer.

Chronic bronchitis occurs when tar and mucus damage the air sacks in the lungs. The sufferer has a bad cough which is worse in the morning, and may get breathless easily.

Gases in cigarette smoke increase your blood pressure and pulse rate. This can contribute to heart diseases. Smokers as twice as non-smokers are likely to have heart trouble.

Smokeless tobacco that is chewed rather than smoked, is also harmful, causing mouth sores, damage to teeth and cancer.

If you’ve ever watched an adult try to give up smoking, you know how hard it can be. It’s easier, healthier and cheaper never to start.

Facts about smoking

• The smell of smoke on your breath and clothes will put people off.
• Someone who smokes 15 cigarettes a day can forget six to nine years of their life.
• You are burning a great deal of money. In many countries cigarettes are heavily taxed.
• Your skin will wrinkle faster and deeper than that of a non-smoker.
• Females who smoke heavily may wrinkle like a woman 20 years older in age.

Text B.The Benefits of Stopping Smoking

Stopping smoking takes some time. There are some stages. If you get to the final stage and fail, just start from the beginning. If you have tried before and failed, still have another go. If you are not sure that you can make it, think of this: there are millions of people who have stopped smoking. So you can do it too. Make up your mind you are going to stop, and you will. Lots of people have been surprised how easy it was to stop once they had really made up their minds. Think about what you gain by stopping.

Right now

You will be free from an expensive and damaging habit. You will be healthier and breathe more easily – for example, when you climb stairs or run for a bus.

You will be free of the worry that you may be killing yourself.

For the future

You will lose your smoker’s cough.

You will suffer fewer colds and other infections.

You will avoid the dangers that smokers face.

On average, people killed by smoking lose 10 or 15 years of their lives.

If you stop smoking before you get cancer or serious heart or lung disease from smoking, then you will avoid nearly all the risks of death or disability from smoking.

And although the main risk of smoking is to the smoker, nonsmoker who lives with the smoker have a higher chance of getting chest disease.

So what’s stopping you?

Questions to the text A.

1. Why do most young people smoke?

2. What changes does the attitude about smoking have?

3. Why is passive smoking harmful?

4. Why is smoking one of the hardest habits?

Complete the sentences

1. Nicotine is a substance …

2. Nicotine is a stimulant …

3. Cigarette smoke contain …

4. Tar is a factor …

5. Tar damages …

6. Gases in cigarette smoke increase …

7. Smokeless tobacco causes …

Prove the statement: Smoking damages the health.

Give your reasons to give up smoking.

Your friend is going to give up smoking. Encourage him

1. Прими решение бросить курить.

2. Верь в успех.

3. Думай о преимуществах отказа от курения.

4. Отказ от курения занимает время. Будь сильным.

5. Пройди весь путь, все стадии.

Situations

1. You are a leader of the anti-smoking campaign. Write down the slogans of it.

2. Mike is fond of sport. He chooses a healthy active life without smoking. Tell what exactly he chooses.

Mike chooses

свободу от пагубной и дорогой привычки здоровый образ жизни и легкое дыхание свободу от риска смерти свободу от опасностей, с которыми сталкивается курильщик. свободу от беспокойства, что своими руками несешь гибель себе и близким. свободу от заболеваний сердца и легких от курения

TOPIC 38. CANCER