DISADVANTAGE OF SMOKING HABIT

DISADVANTAGE OF SMOKING HABIT

Smoking is the inhalation of the smoke of burning tobacco encased in cigarettes, pipes, and cigars. Casual smoking is the act of smoking only occasionally, usually in a social situation or to relieve stress. A smoking habit is a physical addiction to tobacco products. Many health experts now regard habitual smoking as a psychological addiction, too, and one with serious health consequences. Smoking is a practice in which a substance, most commonly tobacco, is burned and the smoke is tasted or inhaled. This is primarily practised as a route of administration for recreational drug use, as combustion releases the active substances in drugs such as nicotine and makes them available for absorption through the lungs. It can also be done as a part of rituals, to induce trances and spiritual enlightenment.

The most common method of smoking today is through cigarettes, primarily industrially manufactured but also hand-rolled from loose tobacco and rolling paper. Other smoking implements include pipes, cigars, bidis, hookahs, vaporizers, and bongs.  It has been suggested that smoking-related disease kills one half of all long term smokers but these diseases may also be contracted by non-smokers. A 2007 report states that, each year, about 4.9 million people worldwide die as a result of smoking. Smoking is one of the most common forms of recreational drug use. Tobacco smoking is today by far the most popular form of smoking and is practiced by over one billion people in the majority of all human societies. Less common drugs for smoking include cannabis and opium. Some of the substances are classified as hard narcotics like heroin, but the use of these is very limited as they are often not commercially available.

            Scientists and doctors know so much more about the effects of smoking today than ever before. They know smoking causes immediate effects on the smoker's body. It constricts the airways of the lungs. It increases the smoker's heart rate. It elevates the smoker's blood pressure. The carbon monoxide in tobacco smoke deprives the tissues of the smoker's body of much-needed oxygen. All of these are dangerous short-term effects. There are more serious long-term effects as well. Smoked tobacco in the forms of cigarettes, pipes, and cigars causes lung cancers, emphysema, and other respiratory diseases. In fact, smoking causes ninety per cent of all lung cancer cases. Twenty per cent of heavy smokers get the chronic lung disease called emphysema, which causes the narrowing, and clogging of the airway passages in the lungs. This disease is seldom seen in non-smoker’s. Smokers are also at least four times more likely to develop oral and laryngeal cancer than non-smokers.

Smoking contributes to heart disease. It increases the risk of stroke by nearly 40% among men and 60% among women. Smoking is an addiction. Tobacco smoke contains nicotine, a drug that is addictive and can make it very hard, but not impossible, to quit. More than 400,000 deaths in the U.S. each year are from smoking-related illnesses. Smoking greatly increases your risks for lung cancer and many other cancers. Smoking harms not just the smoker, but also family members, co-workers and others who breathe the smoker's cigarette smoke, called second hand smoke. Among infants to 18 months of age, second hand smoke is associated with as many as 300,000 cases of bronchitis and pneumonia each year. Second hand smoke from a parent's cigarette increases a child's chances for middle ear problems, causes coughing and wheezing, and worsens asthma conditions. If both parents smoke, a teenager is more than twice as likely to smoke as a young person whose parents are both non-smokers. In households where only one parent smokes, young people are also more likely to start smoking. Pregnant women who smoke are more likely to deliver babies whose weights are too low for the baby's good health.