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Home / Health
Why Do We Smoke?
By:Mike Durand
Cigarette manufactures have been required to put warnings on all their packages of cigarettes to tell us that cigarette smoking is dangerous to our health so why do we still smoke. According to United States studies, cigarette smoking is responsible for one out of every five deaths in the U.S. Smoking robs more than five million years of lifespan because of premature death. Cigarettes are the most addictive and destructive over-the-counter drug known to man. Cigarette smoking is equivocal to lung cancer. With this said, one may wonder why do we still smoke?
Before World War I, tobacco was smoked in the form of cigars. They were primarily smoked by the wealthy. Cigarettes, which are basically leftovers of the cigar making process, were smoked by the less affluent. The number of people who smoked cigarettes boomed when tobacco companies started to mass-produce cigarettes. Their clientele: soldiers of World War I.
As early as 1892 cases of epilepsy, insanity and death were frequently reported as the result of smoking cigarettes, while such physicians as Dr. Lewis Sayre, Dr. Hammond, and Sir Morell Mackenzie of England, name heart trouble, blindness, cancer and other diseases cause by cigarettes smoking.
Leading physicians of America in 1892 unanimously condemn cigarette smoking as one of the vilest and most destructive evils that ever befell the youth of any country, declaring that its direct tendency is a deterioration of the race.
It took some time before modern day physicians would acknowledged the deadly by-product of smoking. Doctors only took notice of the increase in lung cancer incidents 20
to 30 years after WWI. With this increase, Reader's Digest published an article "Cancer by the Carton," which prompted the public to be aware of the effects of cigarette smoking. Similar articles have been published to condemn cigarette smoking. Medical advancements have proven the correlation between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. But despite all of these, lung cancer has remained to be one of the most common diseases in the modern world so why do we still smoke.
Surgeon General Luther Terry issued a landmark concluding, for the first time, that smoking is a direct cause of lung cancer, heart disease, and emphysema in 1964 and then again on May 27, 2004 the U.S. Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona released a new comprehensive report on smoking and health, revealing for the first time that smoking causes diseases in nearly every organ of the body. Published 40 years after the surgeon general's first report on smoking, which concluded that smoking was a definite cause of three serious diseases, this newest report finds that cigarette smoking is conclusively linked to diseases such as leukemia, cataracts, pneumonia and cancers of the cervix, kidney, pancreas and stomach so why do we still smoke?
Cigarettes' most common ingredient is nicotine. Nicotine is more addictive than heroine, which is in fact, a prohibited drug in most parts of the world. Aside from heroine, doctors ranked nicotine ahead of alcohol and cocaine in terms of dependence. Indeed, research has shown that smoking four cigarettes a day can induce life-long addiction to nicotine.
The Cigarette manufactures are not helping according to this report from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, they are one of only 3 states that require tobacco companies to submit reports. What they found is, from 1998 to 2004 the amount of nicotine in a cigarette has increased steadily, the study showed that regardless of brand that the amount of nicotine that is actually delivered to the smokers lungs has increased significantly overall, nicotine yields increased ten percent. Marlboro, Newport, and Camel, the three most popular brands with young smokers, all delivered significantly more nicotine, and Kool menthol increased twenty percent. With all this new information why do we still smoke?
Maybe it's because people who smoke tend to see smoking as a part of their personality, as something that they cannot live without. That is a clear sign of addiction. And the addiction to chemicals, which in the case of nicotine, is considered a sickness.
What adds to the addiction to smoke cigarettes is the psychological pleasure or satisfaction a smoker gains when puffing a cigarette. Smokers describe smoking as a "pat-on-the-back" after a hard day's work. One smoker confesses that it is not the taste of the cigarette; it is actually the sense of satisfaction that you get from it that keeps you smoking. Studies have also shown that depression is twice as common to people who smoke against those who do not smoke. Some also use cigarettes as an ersatz activity to pass time and be patient. Just like in war movies, when a soldier is waiting for the signal to attack, he is seen holding a gun in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
Nicotine triggers the smoker's brain to be more efficient in processing information. It also reduces anxiety and induces euphoria. Researches have also shown that nicotine induces alertness and arousal, and sedation and relaxation based on the dose of nicotine intake. These effects, though, do not outweigh the harmful effect of nicotine addiction, which is lung cancer, and possibly other ailments, which will all eventually lead to death, so why do we still smoke?
People who cannot stop smoking may see it the other way around. They may be blinded by the short-term effects of nicotine. Aside from nicotine, smokers rarely know that a cigarette contains acetylene (fuel used in welding), cyanide, nitrogen oxide, and carbon monoxide, all of which are harmful chemicals. These chemicals are also used as poison, so why do we still smoke?
Psychosocial factors also contribute to why people continue to smoke. People surrounded by people who smoke, like family and friends, can soon develop the habit of smoking. And as its addictive nature, the smoker will have a hard time quitting the habit. An environment permissive and indifferent towards cigarette smoking will produce significant numbers of smokers.
Recently, researchers have reported that genetic variables also play a role on why people keep on smoking. These genetic variables affect the tendency of a person to smoke to the chances of quitting.
Given the many facts and figures related to the hazards of smoking cigarettes, the percentage of smokers has not experienced any considerable decrease. In fact, it continues to increase. The World Health Organization has estimated that by year 2020, tobacco will kill more people than any single disease in the world.
Educating people about the dangers of smoking doesn't seem to help. For some smokers, thinking that smoking is directly related to lung cancer and eventually death is a myth yet to be proven.
I don't know the answer to why do we still smoke, I do know that smoking is not only a habit but in fact that smoking is also an addiction, and sooner or later, this will eventually cause death,so why do we still smoke?
With the cigarette manufactures increasing the nicotine in tobacco which is a highly addictive drug that affects nearly every organ in our body it makes it more difficult to quit smoking, maybe its time to answer the question why do we still smoke. We know that smoking is a very powerful addiction and with the increase of nicotine, it can take multiple attempts to quit smoking, it's time for you to answer the question why do we still smoke and seek out the help you need to quit.
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