Why Do We Smoke Term paper

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Why do we smoke

By Bryan Hesters

After listening to 2 solid weeks of classroom lecture on all the negative side effects that smoking causes in the human body, I felt somewhat concerned that the habit that I have had for 10 years of my life might be a serious problem to my health, even at this young age. We spent a great deal of time discussing the negative side effects of smoking covering heart disease, cancer, and respiratory failure, but there was very little discussion given to how and why we started smoking in the first place and what steps we have to take to quit. I set out to find these answers to these questions and determine the best way to stop smoking forever.

“Smoking kills over 400,000 people a year -- more than one in six people in the United States -- making it more lethal than AIDS, automobile accidents, homicides, suicides, drug overdoses, and fires combined.”(1) It’s baffling to me that something so lethal is sold over the counter. Despite this outrageous number of fatalities, over 47 million people or roughly ¼ of the American Adult Population smoke more than a pack a day according to the Harvard Medical Journal. A vast majority of these smokers started in their teens and never quit or quit only to restart again in their mid 20’s. This is a prolific trend that continues today where, “Each day, almost 3,000 young people start to smoke.” (1). Several sources have been targeted with blame for this trend, some of which include advertising, psychological factors, social support structure or peer pressure, and the likes. Despite Anti-Smoking campaigns targeting these specific areas, the trend continues. This continuance of status quo is largely because the anti-smoking campaigns of the rescent past have been primarily targeted at groups that are already smoking or will soon be. It is the opinion of Daniel Heller, a doctor of pediatrics at the Harvard Medical Center, that,”Anti-smoking advertising campaigns…may be extremely effective when they target children as young as elementary school age, are long-term, and consistently portray smoking as hazardous for adults and children alike.” (3) Much like the success of the “just say no” drug program that was widely documented and proven when targeting this age-group, smoking adds should take the same approach to curb the trends of teenage starters in the US.

Smokers that start have a very hard time stopping. “In one study, of the women smokers who said they wanted to stop smoking, 80% of them were unable to.”(1) Nicotine is felt, by many researches and scientists including the surgeon general, to be as addictive as heroin or cocaine. Nicotine, in fact, affects the same areas of the brain as these drugs and has similar effects. Nicotine is also similar to these drugs in that the body eventually develops a tolerance to them and requires more amounts of the substance to maintain the effects. Nicotine, however, has a much higher resistance level, thusly requiring even newly started smokers to accelerate their use to dangerously addictive levels. This tolerance and inherent addiction is what makes stopping smoking so difficult. When Nicotine is absent in the user, the individual experiences withdrawal symptoms. The pull of this addiction is so strong that, “Even after years of nonsmoking, about 20% of ex-smokers still have occasional cravings for cigarettes.”(1) According to the Web MD website, a site supported by 3 of the leading medical universities in the US and the FDA, offers the following description and recommendation for those handling withdrawal.

Among the physical symptoms of withdrawal are tingling in the hands and feet, sweating, intestinal disorders, and headache. People often experience sore throats, coughing, and other signs of colds and respiratory problems as the lungs begin to clear. While people are enduring these symptoms they should treat themselves as if they were recuperating from a disease -- which they are.

But the withdrawal symptoms also affect the mental and emotional states of those that are struggling to...

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