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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
Lesson 15
Should Smoking Be Prohibited?
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Passive Path to Death for Non-smokers2
Alice Trillin was 38 and thought she was in excellent health. Then "this completely crazy thing" happened.
"I coughed and a tiny, tiny blood clot3 took me to get a chest X-ray. Ten days later I had my lung removed."
Trillin had lung cancer, the kind smokers get. But she had never smoked a cigarette.
The cause of her cancer remained a mystery until a doctor friend asked if her parents.had smoked. They had.
"Nobody had ever said anything about passive smoking. I hadn't worried about the question much," she says.
Most scientists hadn't worried about it much either, until studies in recent years showed that passive smoking was causing 3, 000 to 5, 000 lung cancer deaths a year among Ainerican non-smokers. Now a study estimates that the toll4 from passive smoking, including deaths from heart disease and other cancers, may be 10 times that.
Tobacco smoke in the home and workplace could be killing5 46, 000 non-smokers each year in the United States, the study concludes. That's 3, 000 lung cancer deaths, 11, 000 from other cancers and 32, 000 heart disease deaths.
That would make passive smoking the leading preventable cause of death in the United States after alcohol and smoking itself, said Dr. Ronald M. Davis, director of the US Office on Smoking and Health. Smoking kills 390,000; alcohol, 120, 000.
"No longer are we talking about runny nose or watery6 eyes or headache or nausea7, but a fatal disease," Davis said.
Passive smoking has become the principal battleground for the tobacco industry and its opponents in the 1980s. It is no longer merely a health issue, but political and environmental. Cigarette pollution is fouling8 the air.
"We know that the indoor environment is far more polluted than the outdoor environment, " said James Repace of the Environmental Protection Agency indoor air programme. "We've seen that again and again wherever we've looked all over the United States."
Many people believe smokers have the right to smoke. But they also believe that others shouldn' t have to pay a price.
"When you talk about an involuntary risk, the society becomes much more cautious, " said University of California-San Francisco biomedical engineer Stanton Glantz, an environmentalist and anti-smoking activist10.
The new estimate of non-smoker1 deaths is controversial. Researchers agree it is preliminary and needs to be confirmed.
A tobacco industry consultant11 said the emphasis on passive smoking was misplaced. Many public health officials disagree.
The risk of tobacco smoke " is greater than the risk of radon gas is to non-smokers", Repace said. "We're talking maybe 40 per cent greater. And if you're talking ahout all the carcinogenic air pollutants12 that EPA regulates, it,s l00 times
greater."
II . Read
Read the foltowing passages. Underline the important viewpoints while reading.
l. Benefits of Smoking
Sir, The. essential fact about smoking, which most commentators13 of recent years seem to have ignored is that cigarettes give a vast number of people a good deal of pleasure a lot of the time. That is way the world smoked almost 5, 000, 000, 000, 000 of them last year; approximately 1, 200 for every man., woman. and child on earth.
It is not high pressure advertising14 that makes the Chinese smoke heavily-any more than it was wicked merchants who.persuaded ihe seventeenth century Persians to smoke, despise the Shah's ingenious punishment of pouring molten lead down their throats when they were caught.
There is considerable evidence, surprisingly little publicized. by cigarette manufacturers, that smoking produces certai'n beneficial effects in human beings. Frankenhauser showed that smoking counteracts15 the decrease in efficiency that typically occurs in boring, monotonou's situations, and that smokers impro-ved their performance in complex choace situations while smoking. There is a growing body of evidence that nicotine16 can produce a tranquilizing effect during high emotional and shock situations, whil'e on the other hand stimulating17 con:cen.tration in tedious situations.
None of which proves that smoking may not cause cancer or other illnesses. But, as the late Compton Maekenzie wrote, "If cigarettes vanished from. ihe earth today, I believe the world would go to war again within a comparatively short time."
An extravaga.nt exaggeration, perhaps. But certainly tempers would be shorter, nastier and more brufiah.
Yours faithfully,
Winston fletcher
2.Is Smoking a Bad Habit?
1, a casual smokery always wonder if smoking is really a bad habit. If it is, why does our country produce such a large riumber of cigarettes every year? (As you know, Chi.na is the largsst cigarette producing country in the world. ) If it is,. why do so many girls adrnire handsome boys with a cigarette on their lip?
My friends tell me, "Smoking is a waste of money, a cause of disease..." Admittedly, these reasons frighten some people into giving up smoking, but can you ensure that non-smokers will live long without dying in an epidemic19 or getting killed by a drunken driver? Can you say it is not a waste of money for most non-smokers habitually20 to spend a lot of money on snacks?
In my opinion, smoking is only an amusement, like playing cards, reading, etc. Many years ago, when an adult handed me a cigarette and lit it for me, I felt grown up. When I am with friends and have nothing to say, we smoke, consequently we no longer feel embarrassed.
Sometimes, I light a cigarette, watching my loneliness, suffering and nervousness vanishing with the smoke, I can't help saying inwardly: Hello, cigarette, my old friend, I' m coming to meet you again.
3. Smokers of the World, Unite
It can scarcely have escaped the notice of thinking men, I think, being a thinking man myself, that the forces of darkness opposed to those of us who like a quiet smoke are gathering21 momentum22 daily and starting to throw their weight about more somewhat. Every morning I read in the papers a long article by another of those doctors who are the spearhead of the movement. Tobacco, they say, plugs up the arteries23 and lowers the temperature of the body extremities24, and if you reply that you like your arteries plugged up and are all for having the temperature of your body extremities lowered, especially during the summer months, they bring up that cat again.
The cat to which I allude25 is the one that has two drops of nicotine placed on its tongue and instantly passes beyond the veil. "Iook," they say. "I place two drops of nicotine on the cat's tongue. Now watch it wilt26." I can't see the argument. Cats, as Charles Stuart Calverley said, may have their goose cooked by tobacco juice, but are we to deprive ourselves of all our modest pleasures just because indulgence in them would be harmful to some cat which is probably a perfect stranger?
Take a simple instance such as occors every Saturday on the Rugby football field. The ball is heeled out, the scrum half gathers it, and instantaneously two fourteen- stone forwards fling themselves on this person, grinding him into the mud. Must we abolish Twickenham and Murrayfield because some sorry reasoner insists that if the scrum half had been a cat he would have been squashed flatter than a Dover sole? And no use, of course, to try to drive into these morons27' heads that scrum halves are not cats. Really, one feels inclined at times to give it all up and turn one's face to the wall.
It is pitiful to think that that is how these men spend iheir lives, putting drops of nicotine on the tongues of cats day after day. Slavas to a habit, is the way I look at it. But if you tell them that and urge them to pull themselves together and throw off the shackles28, they just look at you with fishy29 eyes and mumble30 something about it can't be done. Of course it can be done. All it requires is will power. If they were to say to themselves, "I will not start putting nicotine on cats' tongue till after lunch" it would be a simple step to knocking off during the afternoon, and by degrees they would find that they could abstain31 altogether. The first cat of the cats is the hard one to give up. Conquer the impulse for the after-breakfast cat, and the battle is half won.
4. Common Sense about Smoking
It is often said, "I know all about the risk to my health, but I think that the risk is worth it." When this statement is true it should be accepted. Everyone has the right to choose what risks they take, however great they may be. However, often the statement really means, "I have a nasty feeling that smoking is bad for my health, but I would rather not think about it." With some of these people the bluff32 can be called and they can be asked to explain what they think the risk to their own health is. When this is done few get very far in personal terms.
The bare fact that. 23, 000 people died of lung cancer last year in Great Britain often fails to impress an individual. When it is explained that this is the eq.uivalent of one every twenty- five minutes or is four times as many as those killed on the roads, the significance is more apparent. The one-ineight risk of dying of lung cancer for, the man who smokes twenty-five or more cigarettes a day may be better appreciated if an analogy is, used If, when you boarded a plane, the girl at the top of the steps were to welcome you aboard with the greeting, "I am pleased that you are coming with us-only one in eight of our planes crashes."
how many wouid think again, and make other arrangements? Alternatively, the analogy of Russian Roulette may appeal. The man smoking twenty-five or more a day runs the same risk between the ages of thirty and sixty as another who buys a revolver with 250 chambers34 and inserts one live bullet and on each, of his birthdays spins the chamber33, points the revolver at his head,
and pulls the trigger. One of the difficulties in impressing these facts on pgople is that, despite the current epidemic of lung cancer, because it is a disease which kills relatively35 quickly, there are many who have as yet no gxperience of it among their family or friends.
5. On Smoking -Its History and Harm
Tobacco smoking is believed to have started in Central and South America. Nearly 500 years ago explorers who went there with Columbus brought back to Europe the habit of pipe smoking, which they had Learned from the New World Indians. It was introduced into China from Luson during the Ming dynasty.
Until the 1900's tobacco was used mainly for cigars, ,chewing tobacco, pipe tobacco and snuff. Cigarettes may first have been made by the Aztecs of Mexico. They smoked shredded36 tobacco rolled in corn husk covering. Cigarette smoking gained some popularity in Europe during the 1800's. It increased sharply after World War I and again after World War II.
For centuries the smoking of tobacco in cigarettes, cigars and pipes has produced controversy37 over possible health hazards. Scientific investiBations of smoking and health gained impetus38 after the beginning of the 20th century, when an increase in lung cancer was noted39. But only since the 1950's has sufficient scientific evidence accumulated to make possible a thorough evaluation40 of the health risk. Although some gaps in knowledge still exist, the information now available is sufficient to permit making sound judgements.
Since cigarettes have steadily41 become more popular than cigars and pipes, investigators42 have directed their principal consideration to cigarette smoking.
As we now know, tobacco contains an organic compound-nicotine. It is the rincipal alkaloid of tobacco, occurring throughout the plant. Nicotine, one of the many substances pharmacologically active in tobacco smoke, exerts an effect on the heart and nervous system in particular. The effect on the nervous system is predominantly tranquilizing and relaxing. There is little doubt that the physiological43 effects strengthen the habit. So for centuries, some people obstinately44 believed tobacco smoking possessed45 medicinal properties.
It reduced tension and was pleasurable. But in reality, it has turned out to be tragedy. When you smoke, you're breathing in close to a gram of dirty brown tar9 a day. Even the smoking of only a few cigarettes a day causes many dangerous ailments46. An American scientist estimated that smokers who average a package a day for 20 years will lose about eight years of their lives.
Along with the increase in cigarette smoking, many scientific investigations
have been undertaken. Overwhelming evidence proves the danger and harm of smoking.
Experimental, clinical-pathological, and epidemiological evidence indicates that cigarette smoking is the main cause of lung cancer.The risk of developing lung cancer increases with the number of cigarettes smoked per day and the duration of the smoking habit, and it diminishes with the cessation of smoking.
Cigarette smoking was also found to be connected with other types of cancer. It is considered a major factor in causing cancer of the larynx and is associated with cancer of the esophagus. Smoking is a significant factor in the development of oral cancer, and pipe smoking alone or with other tobacco use, is causally related to lip cancer.
Cigarette smoking is the greatest cause of chronic47 bronchitis. A person suffering from chronic bronchitis may have the disease and the cough connected with it, for many years, perhaps for the rest of his life.
Cigarette smoking has also been found to be connected with pulmonary emphysema, a disabling disease of the lungs. The smoking of cigarettes increases the risk of dying from chronic bronchitis and from pulmonary emphysema.
Smoking is associated with coronary heart disease. Nowadays this disease accounts for a high percentage of deaths annually48. Cigarette smokers are much more likely to die from a heart attack than nonsmokers.
Smoking injures blood vessels49, speeds up hardening of the arteries and increases the work of the heart. It is one of the factors contributing to high blood pressure.
What little we've mentioned above is sufficient to show that smoking is extremely harmful to health. Most peple throughout the.world have come to realize the danger. Nowadays some governments are taking practical measures against smoking. We sincerely advise those who have formed the smoking habit to stop and those who haven,t yet started not to. It is both for your own sake and for the sake of the next generation.
A recent survey report says that children exposed to parental50 cigarette smoke may be put at a higher risk of developing lung disease later in fheir lives. Passive exposure to smoke may. also interfere51 with normal lung growth in young children. There is a strong association between parental smoking and children' s pulmonary function. Children who recorded the weakest lung function were found to be smokers themselves and to have parents or brothers and sisters who smoked.
So let us join together to launch a mass movement to break this harmful smoking habit, and build ourselves up, healthy and strong, to work hard for the four modernizations52.
6. Call to Stop Offering Cigarettes!
To the Chinese, who claim to have invented rules of etiquette53, offering igarettes is a way of being hospitable54 to guests.
When somebody calls, first of all, the host would offer him a cigarette and a cup of tea. In the countryside, hospitable, old men often allow visiting guests to share the long-stemmed Chinese pipe which they themselves are smoking. At wedding ceremonies, brides would offer cigarettes to all guests who came to eXpress their congratulations and light the cigarettes for.each of them one after another.
All these were originally aimed.. at displaying the Chinese hospitality and respect towards the guests. But in recent years, the oId tradition has been used as a means to nurse good relations.
Even those who never smoke have brand-name cigarettes in their pockets. Whenever they have to seek somebody's favour, they first offer him a cigarette, If the other party turns it down, he is being impolite. If he accepts it he has to do something, for courtesy demands a favour in return.
Tobacco contains harmful substances. So offering cigarettes to somebody is equal to doing harm to him, gut55 neither people who offer cigarettes nor those who take them fully18 realize it.
It is even more unhealthy for the host to pass the long-stemmed Chinese pipe or water pipe to the visitor after smoking it beforehand.
Once I paid a visit to a relative who had just returned from abroad. He was smoking but did not produce one for me. Instead, he placed the cigarette packet on the table and told me: "Cigarettes produce carbon monoxide and nicotine. But if you don't mind this, take it yourself.?
His way of offering cigarettes was unique but worth learning.
Many people throughout the world are attempting to quit smoking. But to give up the practice, firstly I think, we had better cl7ange the tradetional method of entertaining guests.
Not to offer cigarettes does not mean one is inhospitable. The cigarette packet is on the table. If you cannot check your craving56 for one at the risk of your health, you may. But you will have to bear the consequences
yourself.
You had better also bear in mind that while you are smoking and harming yourself, you are also polluting the air and hurting others.
7. Smoking Is a Bad Habit
Smoking is a bad habit. Firstly, it ruins people's health. Health experts have warned us for years that smoking can lead to heart disease, lung cancer and various respiratory ailments. The World Health Organization says diseases linked to smoking kill at least 2, 500, 000 people each year. Research conducted in many countries also indicates that pregnant women who smoke run the risk of having deformed57 babies. Besides, it has been proven beyond doubt that when a person smokes, he subjects the people around him not only to great discomfort58 but also to physical harm.
Secondly59, smoking is extravagant60. Smokers, either wage-earners or those who live off their parents, spend a large sum of money on cigarettes, which cost them at least 10% of their expenses each month. What's more, sensible women try to avoid marrying heavy smokers, even though some of them appreciate the image of a handsome young man with a cigarette dangling61 from the corner of his mouth. A friend of mine, a heavy smoker, has been seeking an ideal wife who will tolerate his extravagant "hobby? but up to now he hasn't found one.
Thirdly, smoking has a bad impact on the psyche62 of the smokers. After realizing the bad effects of smoking, many people try to give up smoking. but no matter how hard they try ,some of them just can't resist the temptation to smoke again. Gradually, they lose confidence in themselves and get used to making excuses.
收听单词发音 |
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smoker
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| n.吸烟者，吸烟车厢，吸烟室 | |
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smokers
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| 吸烟者( smoker的名词复数 ) | |
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clot
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| n.凝块；v.使凝成块 | |
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toll
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| n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟) | |
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killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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watery
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| adj.有水的，水汪汪的；湿的，湿润的 | |
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nausea
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| n.作呕，恶心；极端的憎恶(或厌恶) | |
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fouling
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| n.（水管、枪筒等中的）污垢v.使污秽( foul的现在分词 )；弄脏；击球出界；（通常用废物）弄脏 | |
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tar
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| n.柏油，焦油；vt.涂或浇柏油/焦油于 | |
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activist
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| n.活动分子，积极分子 | |
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consultant
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| n.顾问；会诊医师，专科医生 | |
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pollutants
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| 污染物质（尤指工业废物）( pollutant的名词复数 ) | |
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commentators
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| n.评论员( commentator的名词复数 )；时事评论员；注释者；实况广播员 | |
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advertising
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| n.广告业；广告活动 a.广告的；广告业务的 | |
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counteracts
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| 对抗，抵消( counteract的第三人称单数 ) | |
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nicotine
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| n.(化)尼古丁，烟碱 | |
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stimulating
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| adj.有启发性的，能激发人思考的 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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epidemic
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| n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的 | |
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habitually
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| ad.习惯地，通常地 | |
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gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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momentum
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| n.动力，冲力，势头；动量 | |
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arteries
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| n.动脉( artery的名词复数 )；干线，要道 | |
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extremities
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| n.端点( extremity的名词复数 )；尽头；手和足；极窘迫的境地 | |
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allude
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| v.提及，暗指 | |
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wilt
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| v.(使)植物凋谢或枯萎；(指人)疲倦，衰弱 | |
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morons
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| 傻子( moron的名词复数 )； 痴愚者（指心理年龄在8至12岁的成年人） | |
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shackles
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| 手铐( shackle的名词复数 )； 脚镣； 束缚； 羁绊 | |
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fishy
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| adj. 值得怀疑的 | |
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mumble
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| n./v.喃喃而语，咕哝 | |
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abstain
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| v.自制，戒绝，弃权，避免 | |
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bluff
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| v.虚张声势，用假象骗人；n.虚张声势，欺骗 | |
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chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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chambers
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| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
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relatively
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| adv.比较...地，相对地 | |
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shredded
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| shred的过去式和过去分词 | |
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controversy
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| n.争论，辩论，争吵 | |
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impetus
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| n.推动，促进，刺激；推动力 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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evaluation
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| n.估价，评价；赋值 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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investigators
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| n.调查者，审查者( investigator的名词复数 ) | |
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physiological
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| adj.生理学的，生理学上的 | |
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obstinately
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| ad.固执地，顽固地 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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ailments
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| 疾病（尤指慢性病），不适( ailment的名词复数 ) | |
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chronic
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| adj.(疾病)长期未愈的，慢性的；极坏的 | |
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annually
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| adv.一年一次，每年 | |
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vessels
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| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
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parental
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| adj.父母的；父的；母的 | |
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interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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modernizations
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| n.现代化，现代化的事物( modernization的名词复数 ) | |
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etiquette
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| n.礼仪，礼节；规矩 | |
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hospitable
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| adj.好客的；宽容的；有利的，适宜的 | |
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gut
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| n.[pl.]胆量；内脏；adj.本能的；vt.取出内脏 | |
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craving
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| n.渴望,热望 | |
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deformed
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| adj.畸形的；变形的；丑的，破相了的 | |
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discomfort
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| n.不舒服，不安，难过，困难，不方便 | |
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secondly
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| adv.第二，其次 | |
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extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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dangling
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| 悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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psyche
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| n.精神；灵魂 | |
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