Smoking is on the increase among young people. Discuss the problem and suggest what might be done about it.

Napisz rozprawkę, w której ustosunkujesz się do problemu palenia wśród młodych ludzi. Zaproponuj własne rozwiązanie problemu.

While smoking seems to be on the decline among adults, the increasing numbers of youngsters are taking up the nasty habit. In spite of a lot of antismoking campaigns, young people start inhaling nicotine early. They do not really think about irreversible changes in their throat, lungs and heart which are caused by the smoke.

Some people claim that the main re­ason of these alarming facts is the seductive ad­ver­ti­sing campaigns aimed at young pe­ople by the tobacco companies. That is why one way to combat the problem is to ban all the cigarette advertising in order to reverse the di­stur­bing trend. As a result the youngsters would no longer be constantly exposed to seductive images of cigarettes.

Going this way, government may in­tro­du­ce a ‘negative image’ advertising cam­pa­ign to expose the truth – that smo­king is a dangerous habit which kills thousands of people every year. Such campaign sho­uld deter young people from wanting to start smoking and encourage the others to give up. What is more teachers could help and tell their students what will happen to them if they smoke and teach them about the wide variety of ailments that smoking produces.

One final suggestion which would help is to impose heavier taxes on cigarettes, thus making them even more expensive that they already are. So even if it were possible for children to buy cigarettes before they are eighteen, it would be impossible for them to afford it.

To sum it up I think it is possible to re­du­ce the number of young smoking pe­ople or even eliminate smoking altogether. But such ac­ti­vi­ty needs some help from people who have po­wer to do something about it, like government. And smoking is a pro­blem where it is hard to find a good motivation to act.

be on the increase – wzrastać, wzmagać się
be on the decline – chylić się do upadku, mieć tendencję spadkową
irreversible – nieodwołalny, nieodwracalny, nieuleczalny
seductive – kuszący, uwodzicielski, ponętny
ban – zakaz
disturbing – niepokojący, zatrważający
as a result – w rezultacie
deter – odstraszać
ailment – choroba, dolegliwość, niedomaganie
altogether – zupełnie, całkiem, całkowicie