Tobacco

What is tobacco?

Tobacco is a plant whose brown-colored leaves are cured and dried.  People can smoke tobacco in cigars, cigarettes, or a pipe.  People can also chew tobacco or snort it as snuff.

Is tobacco a drug?

By definition, a drug is a nonfood substance that can cause changes in the function of the body and/or mind. Many people believe tobacco is a drug.  Tobacco leaves contain a complex mixture of chemicals that affect the body in many ways.
Nicotine is one of the main ingredients in tobacco.  It is a drug that occurs naturally in the tobacco leaf, acting paradoxically as both a stimulant and a depression.

Is there a safe  way to smoke?

No. All cigarettes can damage the human body.  Any amount of smoke is danagerous.  Although some people try to make their smoking habit safer by smoking fewer cigarettes, most smokers find that hard to do. Some people think that switching from high-tar and high-nicotine cigarettes to those with low tar and nicotine makes smoking safer, but this is not true.  When people switch to brands with lower tar and nicotine, they often end up smoking more cigarettes, or more of each cigarette, to get the same nicotine dose as before.  A low-tar can be just as harmful as a high-tar because a person often takes deeper puffs, puffs more frequently, or smokes them to a shorter butt length. 

Is cigarette smoking really addictive?

Yes.  The nicotine in cigarette smoke causes an addiction to smoking.  Nicotine ia an addictive drug (just like heroin and cocaine) for 3 main reasons:

  1. When taken in small amounts, nicotine creates pleasant feelings that make the smoker want to smoke more.
  2. Smokers usually become dependent on nicotine and suffer physical withdrawal symptoms when they stop smoking.  these sympotms include nervousness, headaches, and trouble sleeping.
  3. Because nicotine affects the chemistry of the brain and central nervous system, it can affect the mood and nature of smokers.

 

Is Nicotine the only thing in tobacco that is bad for your health?

No, tobacco smoke contains thousands of chemicals, at least 400 of which are known to be toxic or harmful in other ways.  Many of these chemicals are cancer-causing agents (carcinogens).

What does it mean by tar in cigarettes, and how does it effect your health?

Cigarette tar is a product of the burned resin of the tobacco leaves.  It is the brownish glue on the filter tips of cigarettes.  What we call tar is actually a collection of many tiny particles.  Smoking a cigatette causes tar to be deposited on the respiratory tract. Tar coats and irritates the lining of the air passages in the lungs.

What if someone smokes for a while and then quits?

All smokers, including teenagers, show some signs of early airway and lung disease such as chronic bronchitis, hacking, coughing, and spitting.  Lung conditions become progressively worse as long as smoking continues.

How do people become "hooked" on cigarettes?

People start smoking for many reasons.  Some start just to "relax" or feel good.  A smokers may soon learn to relax by lighting up whenever he or she feels nervous.  In the same way, other smoking habits gradually form.  After a while, the smoker learns to reach for a cigarette to fight boredom, to look a certain way, after meals, etc.  It doesn't take long for a new smoker to become habituated to nicotine.