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The history of tobacco
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Tobacco was introduced into England in the 16th century. Cigarettes were unknown and people who smoked used pipes. Tobacco can be chewed or inhaled as snuff. The habit of taking snuff was common in the late 17th century and during the 18th century, but has now largely died out.
Cigars and cigarettes were introduced during the 19th century, but pipe smoking remained the most popular form of smoking until this century. Cigarette smoking increased sharply during the two world wars. As the consumption of cigarettes has increased, so has the number of death from lung cancer.
Why do people smoke ?
Well there are three points:
Pleasure: Most people smoke to enjoy the taste and aroma of tobacco and tobacco smoke. Many of them enjoy the whole process of lighting up, inhaling and breathing out the smoke.
Relaxion: A large number of smokers claim that it helps them to relax. There is some evidence that one affect of nicotine is to act as a sedative, claiming the nerves.
Habit: Cigarette - smoking is a habit forming. Most adult smokers smoke from habit.
Why do young people smoke ?
Surveys show that many young poeple try their first cigarette at the age of 11 or 12. They continued to experiment for a number of years, without forming a habit. In 1983, a survey of 5000 secondary schoolchildren reported that 25% of 5th year pupils smoked regulary. Children aged 11 to 16 smoked nearly £60 million worth of cigarettes a year.
Many young people say they smoked their first cigarette to find out for themselve what is was like. Older teenagers often admit that they took up smoking because their family or friends smoked and they wanted to appear like them.
What happens when you smoke ?
Tobacco smoke is a mixture of tiny droplets of tar and gases.
Nicotine: Is a very powerful drug and is probably the addictive agent in cigarettes. Nicotine temporarily stimulates the nervous system.
Tar: Tobacco tar contains a number of cancer producing substances. When tobacco smoke is inhaled it coasts the lungs with tar. The last third of a cigarette produces more tar and nicotine than the first-two-thirds put together.
Carbon monoxide: Is the deadly gas that is present in car exhaust fumes. It is also present in cigarette smoke. It affects the blood's ability to carry oxygen round the body. This is one reason why sucessful sportsmen don't smoke !
Irritant dusts: The dusts in cigarette smoke irritate the lining of the air tubes. They damage the cilia, the fine hairs which keep the lings clean. They also produce the "smoker's cough".
Tobacco and the human body
The teeth:
The teeth of heavy smokers may become dull and yellow from nicotine stains.
The lungs:
Smoking can damage the lungs so badly that a person cannot breath properly. 90% of deaths from lung cancer are the result of smoking.
The heart:
Smoking causes as many deaths from coronary heart disease as it does from lung cancer. As well as weakening the heart muscle, smoking may also produce disease of their arteries.
The stomach:
Tobacco smoke irritates the lining of the stomach. It can affect the digestive system so that food is not digested properly.
The risks of smoking
. Cigarette smoking is responsible for 50.000 premature deaths a year.
. One in ten heavy smokers dies of lung cancer, which kills more than 30.000 people a year in Britain. Half of those who die from lung cancer are under the age of 65.
. People in Britain die each year from a heart attack. 25% of these deaths are considered to be due to smoking. Smoking makes the risks of death from a coronary attack five times greater.
. Cigarettes are one of the major causes of bronchitis, which kills over 30.000 people a year in Britain.
. An average cigarette smoker is likely to give up 5½ years of his life because he smokes.
. 13 times more smokers die of lung cancer than non-smokers.
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