Effects Of Smoking On The Mind And Body

According to “The Action of Smoking and Health,” every six seconds someone loses their life as a result of a tobacco related disease. It’s hard to realize how damaging cigarette smoking’s effect can be until you experience it first hand. It is almost certain that every one knows someone who is currently a smoker or was a smoker at some point in their life. For years smoking was the seen as the “cool” thing to do, it was how to “fit in.” There was no real emphasis placed on the dangers of this particular habit, and as a result, it became a world wide trend. In the past, technology and medicine were not nearly advanced enough to be able to determine just how harmful tobacco usage is. However, as we have made medical and

Have you ever heard the term “tobacco”? Chances are you have. We are taught about tobacco as adolescence and the effects it has on the human body. Impacts that are so great it turns our bodies into grotesque machines that run on this chemical. Have we forgotten the photographs of blackened lungs and yellow-brown teeth from our sixth grade text-books? It seems we have. 15.7% of all American teenagers smoke. 5.6% of all American teenagers use a smokeless tobacco products. These numbers are at an all-time low, but don’t you think we can do better? I know we can. In 2013 a percentage of 17.8 adults smoke. About 3.5 percent of American adults use a smokeless tobacco product. Need more convincing? Half of all cigarette smokers’ deaths are caused by smoking. Over 6

One of my first memories in the United States was taking a Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E) class. I was in sixth grade and a top student, as talking about drugs and alcohol and the way they affect us was fascinating to me. This is why, the following year, I volunteered to become a peer educator in Teens Against Tobacco Use (T.A.T.U). For a couple of years, I gave presentations to young students which included facts, demonstrations, and games, to spread the knowledge that tobacco is harmful and that staying away from smoking prolongs life expectancy and increases the quality of life. It should come as no surprise, then, that I consider myself a big proponent of staying tobacco-free and encouraging others to quit smoking as a great way to promote health. I remember watching my mom and sister as they took part in their nightly ritual of smoking a few cigarettes to unwind. “Did you know that a main component of cigarettes is used as rocket fuel?” I would ask them, as I opened the window and they stared back at me blankly. “We know, we know” was the answer every time. I knew that convincing them to quit was no easy task, but I was committed. Day after day, I proudly stated a new fact about the evils of smoking. Finally one day, they quit. At first, they attributed it to the cost. Since we had just immigrated to the United States, the cost of cigarettes was simply not something they could afford. I didn’t believe it. I proudly

It is estimated that half of all smokers die from diseases related to the consumption of tobacco and live an average of ten to fifteen years less than non-smokers.

Tobacco has been around in the world for over 2.5 million years. It was not until a few hundred years ago when the tobacco industry decided to put these crops into use and conjure up tobacco products for the community. A popular tobacco product in society is cigarettes, as they are cheap and simple to use. As long as one is over eighteen, acquiring cigarettes is a straightforward process for a reasonable price, albeit the sin tax. It was not until recently when cigarettes became widely controversial due to the plant containing nicotine, an addictive drug to the body. Aside from containing nicotine and other hazardous chemicals to the body, cigarettes also cause a whole host of health implications

Tobacco use and the effects of second hand smoke have been an ongoing issue for many years. Looking at the attitude of the 1950’s and 1960’s when smoking was thought of as cool, suave, mature, etc., there has been a major turnaround in the way society looks at the use of tobacco. Now the issue is not just smoking and the damage to health that it causes, but now there is the additional awareness of what second hand smoke can do to individuals.

Many drugs are used, misused, and abused in American society today. Some of these carry stigma in the general population, forcing users into an underground drug subculture. Others are accepted and almost promoted under certain circumstances. Tobacco is one of those drugs. Tobacco will be discussed in the context of cigarette smoking. This is not to undermine the existence or danger of other forms of tobacco, but instead to have an exhaustive discussion of cigarette smoking and its societal impact. Cigarettes are a means of inhaling tobacco, where it enters the lungs and is absorbed through the blood vessels, traveling to the heart, from which it is finally pumped to the brain (Hogan, Gabrielsen, Luna, and Grothaus 2003:76). Cigarettes are detrimental to society because they not only affect the user who chooses to smoke; they impact people around them through second-hand and residual smoke. The damage done by cigarettes is not impossible to address. Successful prevention measures are already in place, but this paper intends to suggest other more direct measures, especially related to statutory regulations.

Tobacco companies are doing very well all over the world. Every packet of cigars or cigarettes has a warning inscribed in it: cigarette smoking is injurious to health." Yet the smoker never reads this warning and even if he reads it he never pays heed to it.

In the 1800's and early 1900's, everyone were smokers because nobody knew that it was harmful or dangerous. During World War I, soldiers would take cigarettes in their rations because they were so addicted to them. For them, cigarettes were a part of their life that they had to have. In early 1964, the US general proved that smoking was addictive and was cancerous. However, this statement was not released for a few weeks because the cigarette and tobacco companies did whatever they could to stop it. Later that year, the Surgeon General's

We know this statement and we see this in advertisements, in slogans, in posters and televisions everywhere and yet smoking still the leading cause of death in America. According to Centers for Communicable diseases, 2017, smoking is still the No. 1 cause of preventable death in the United States. It kills more people than infectious disease, abuse, firearms, obesity and traffic accidents. Some people do not believe that smoking is harmful to them. Some people do not notice the harm at first and by the time they notice the effects, they are addicted to it already. That is why the Word Health Organization calls it as “gradual killer”. Lastly, according to Sherry McKee, the director of Yale Behavioral Pharmacology Lab, “Most of the smokers think that they can just quit easily at any time and nearly all believe that they won’t be long-term smokers”. These are some of the knowledge gaps in tobacco use.

Over the years we have seen a monumental change in the way society views cigarette smoking. At one time cigarette smoking was seen as a normal behavior and few regulations existed. However, as the associated health risks and anti-smoking campaigns have been introduced to the media, stigmatization of smokers has continuously risen over the years. Around the end of World War II, smoking was seen as a fashionable/trendy and effective stress reliever; today it is seen as socially unacceptable and often frowned upon. What most likely led to this radical change in opinion concerning cigarettes? The answer may lie in recent movements of anti-smoking legislation, decline in smoking prevalence, the increase in anti-smoking media such commercials and campaigns, as well as increased public health awareness as to the dangers of first and secondhand smoke (Pacheco, 2011). Groups even exist composed of anti-smoking activists that are dedicated to promoting an unfavorable image of smoking; one extreme example being the 1970’s group SMASH, the Society for Mortification and Smoker Humiliation, who suggested implanting explosives into cigarettes.(“Anti-smoking Hall of Fame,”

The tobacco industry kills more people in North America from Monday to Thursday of each week than the terrorists murdered in total on September 11, 2001. That sounds unrealistic, doesn’t it? Well, smoking is an epidemic that affects us all, whether you are a smoker or you aren’t. In order to stop this epidemic, we need to

Attention getter: According to Tobacco-Free Kids, “about 400,000 people die from their own smoking each year, and about 50,000 die from second-hand smoke annually. Smoking kills more people than AIDS, alcohol, car accidents, illegal drugs, murders and

Almost half of all smokers die prematurely. The fact of the matter is that smoking can take up to 25 years off a person’s life. It is a documented fact that between Emphysema, lung cancer, and other smoking related diseases, the last few years of a dieing smoker’s life are agonizing. In some severe cases of emphysema people can’t even breath by themselves let alone talk. In these cases, the people need machines to do both. What’s even worse is that the tobacco companies aren’t just going after adults. They target their advertisements towards kids. 90% of new smokers are children and teenagers. This is for many reasons. Children are more impressionable than any other demographic, and if they get addicted early than there is a good chance Big Tobacco has a customer for life, instead of just a portion of that life. An example of this advertisement is the now banned Joe Camel. Joe Camel was a “cool” cartoon character created by Camel brand cigarettes to sell their product. The first problem with this ploy was the fact that “Joe” was a cartoon. Cartoons obviously attract kids. Secondly, the cartoon was drawn to be extremely smooth and cool something that adolescents and teenagers strive their entire lives to be. A broader example is the presence of attractive woman and men appearing on billboards and in magazines holding a cigarette and having such a great time. Who doesn’t want to be attractive and always having a good time?

Smoking is typically known to be dangerous and unhealthy, so why are people still smoking and why did they ever smoke? Smoking began around 6000 BC, when it was thought to be helpful for medical purposes, such as balancing the four humors, because the smoke was hot and dry (Wright 408). Currently, science shows that the four humors are not what balances health and this practice is no longer relevant. So why do people still smoke? According to the Cancer Research center, smoking was thought to be more beneficial than harmful, due to the stress relieving and appetite suppressing qualities; smoking began to decline in the 1970’s due to the realization of all its damaging effects (Wright 408). Only fifty years ago smoking was thought to be healthy, so societies addiction to smoking has not quite subsided, but it is time the government lends a hand by outlawing smoking outside of designated areas. Other factors, such as societal influence, affect the fact that people are still smoking even though the evidence shows it is harmful. Although the number of smokers has decreased since 1970, smoking is yet to be eliminated and continues to be a presence effecting today’s youth.