Smoking is serious health issue

If you are suffering from addiction, you’re not alone. Cigarettes are smoked by over one billion people. Smoking is the single largest cause of preventable disease and death in the United States.

Every hour, more than 50 Americans die from smoking cigarettes, about 440,000 people a year. Yet still, many people continue their habits regardless of the cost. People could save, not just their own, but others’ lives through the discontinuation of smoking.

Admittedly, people have smoked before for seemingly right reasons. To relieve stress, people smoke the nicotine inside the cigarette.

This makes the user release a brain hormone called Dopamine. This makes the user feel a cloud nine effect and have a “high” to make them feel soothed.

However, how much stress does the cigarette relieve you of? A cigarette high is very powerful, yes, but after the first time, it just becomes addictive, not even letting dopamines get released. It’s more stressful for the smoker to continue chasing that cloud nine than not smoking because the feeling of that high depletes over time.

Each “cloud nine” is one less than the previous. Smoking is not a continuous happy-golucky feeling, but a death trap. (https://www.nhs.uk/smokefree/why-quit/smoking-healthproblems.)

Equally important, the idea of smoking is that only the smoker is affected. This information is incorrect. Secondhand smoke comes from burning cigars, pipes, cigarettes, or any sort of smoke exhaled from the smoker. 41,000 people die per year from inhaling secondhand smoke.

It contains more than 7,000 chemicals (National Lung Society) that are significantly harmful and even more deadly for those with asthma or younger children with undeveloped lungs.

In fact, this smoke even kills innocent babies. About 2,000 deaths from SIDS, or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, are linked to smoking.

You might argue that you don’t smoke around your kids, but thirdhand smoke, or smoke clinging to the surroundings, can react with pollutants in the air to release cancer-causing toxins.

There is never a “safe level” of exposure to smoke from tobacco, no matter the situation or sacrifice.

Additionally, smoking cigarettes are not more or less bad than any other substance. Whether it’s a cigar, a pipe, an electronic cigar, or anything else, smoking is harmful to the outside and inside.

Regular cigar smoking greatly increases the risk for cancers of the lung, mouth, and many more necessary system parts.

The different kinds of tobacco are not safer than the man-made, processed tobacco. Although many smokers think other kinds of cigarettes are less harmful than the plain cigarette, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that the drug of nicotine is still delivered and is at least as toxic and harmful as smoking a cigarette.

Many people do accept these facts as truth and still continue smoking, but the effect of smoking is not just health-related, it’s economics.

Every year, cigarette companies spend $13.11 billion expenses on promoting and advertising the use of tobacco, and not just to smokers, but to teens as well. This is to “find replacement smokers for those who die or quit” (https://smokingstinks.org/fast-facts). The average smoker who uses one pack every day pays six dollars per pack.

That equals $2,190 per year, a rather large sum of money for inflicting pain to a smoker and the environment around them. Moreover, the cost of healthcare for smokers and the people around them will continuously increase, causing lower productivity for workers taking several cigarette breaks per day and a great number of sick days due to poor health.

The government raises enormous money due to the simple cigarette to continue manufacturing these death sticks and advertising smoking to our new generation.

Whether you smoke or your friend does, smoking hurts everything and everyone. The smoker is surely doomed right when the cigarette touches their lips. Despite the smoking sensation, arguments against it remain powerful. Quitting smoking isn’t easy, but there are methods. Nobody should be afraid to ask.

Nika Farivar Kennett Square