In the modern educational system, children are bombarded by all the negative effects of smoking on one’s health at a young age.  The hype over anti-smoking education is not ill-placed, given that 438,000 people died prematurely of smoking-related illness between 1997 and 2001, many of them from effects of secondhand smoke.  Despite all the modern education about the effects of smoking, the government is continuing to increase its efforts against tobacco through The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (Tobacco Control Act). 

 The act mandates that more textual health warnings and corresponding, graphic images be present on all cigarette packs and advertisements.  The new warnings will prove beneficial to smokers who will find themselves pressured to quit as they physically see what it does to their internal organs.  The government has already outlawed marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine, and other drugs that have proven addictive and highly toxic to the human body.  Therefore, The Tobacco Control Act is but another step that the government must take to protect United States’ citizens from the effects of harmful and addictive substances. 

When it comes to addictive products that spread and cause national health risks like the above figure, the government has the responsibility to outlaw the product and protect people from its subversive influence.  Indeed, it is only ethical to make sure that people who choose to smoke know exactly what cigarettes will do to their body.  The new cigarette pack graphics will ultimately save lives from unnecessary health risks associated with smoking.