英語検定ライティング準１級（第159回）

喫煙「歩きタバコが摘発される話」

以前は周囲に喫煙者がたくさんいた。彼らの吐く煙で気分が悪くなることがよくあった。しかし近年はその数が減った。それはタバコ税によるものだろう。１箱の値段の６割は税金だ。
There used to be numerous smokers around us, and the smoke they emit often made us sick, but the number of them has become small in recent years, which might be responsible for tobacco taxation because sixty percent of a tobacco box’s price is tax, so smokers release tax into air as well as poisonous substances.

もともとは副流煙に含まれる化学物質に発がん性のものがあるというのが問題だった。それはタバコを吸わない人には死活問題だった。他人の副流煙で死ぬとかどんなに悔やんでもなあ。
In the first place, chemicals included in secondhand smoke contain carcinogenic substances, which was serious and threatening issues to numerous nonsmokers.
Those who don’t smoke never want to die from others’ secondhand cigarettes’s smoke.

副流煙が無害なるように電子タバコは開発された。喫煙者には画期的なタバコだ。だが税金は払わなくてはならない。副流煙に発がん性物質がないのなら歩きタバコも禁止にならないか。
An electronic cigarette has been developed so that secondhand smoke fail to harm people around them, which was a breakthrough product to numerous smokers, who must pay tobacco taxes.
When an electronic tobacco wouldn’t emit poisonous chemicals, it shouldn’t be banned on the streets.

静岡の９歳の男子が路上で喫煙者とすれ違って気分が悪くなっとということがありました。それで彼は路上喫煙に対する署名活動を始めました。それは功を奏して条例ができたのです。
A ten-year-boy in Shizuoka with asthma came across a pedestrian smoking on the street, and he felt sick due to his secondhand smoke, who collected numerous signatures against smokers on the street.
As a result, this prefecture determined that a smoker on the street should be fined 2000 yen, to our relief.

私の友人の父親はヘビースモーカーだったらしいです。そして母親が肺がんで亡くなったそうです。彼はある宗教に入信しました。喫煙と肺がんに関連があっても、宗教はないと思う。
One friend of mine in the university days told us that his father was a heavy smoker and his mother was died from lung cancer, as a result, he entered a certain religious organization, who hated his father.
We aren’t sure that his heavy smoker father had something to do with his mother’s death, but his religious belief wouldn’t rescue him from his tremendous grief.