Cigarettes, cigars, and spit and pipe tobacco are made from dried tobacco leaves, as well as ingredients added for flavor and other properties. More than 4,000 individual chemicals have been identified in tobacco and tobacco smoke. Among these are more than 60 chemicals that are known carcinogens (cancer-causing agents).
There are hundreds of substances added to cigarettes by manufacturers to enhance the flavor or to make the smoking experience more pleasant. Some of the compounds found in tobacco smoke include ammonia, tar, and carbon monoxide. Exactly what effects these substances have on the cigarette consumer’s health is unknown, but there is no evidence that lowering the tar content of a cigarette improves the health risk. Manufacturers do not provide the public with information about the precise amount of additives used in cigarettes, so it is hard to accurately gauge the public health risk.
Nicotine Addiction
Addiction is characterized by the repeated, compulsive seeking or use of a substance despite harmful consequences. Addiction is often accompanied by physical and psychological dependence on the substance. Nicotine is the addictive drug in tobacco. Regular use of tobacco products leads to addiction in a high proportion of users.
In 1988, the US Surgeon General concluded the following:
Cigarettes and other forms of tobacco are addicting.
Nicotine is the drug in tobacco that causes addiction.
The pharmacologic and behavioral processes that determine tobacco addiction are similar to those that determine addiction to drugs such as heroin and cocaine.
Nicotine is found in substantial amounts in all forms of tobacco. It is absorbed readily from tobacco smoke in the lungs and from oral tobacco in the mouth or nose. It rapidly spreads throughout the body.
Tobacco companies are required by law to report nicotine levels in cigarettes to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), but in most states they are not required to show the amount of nicotine on the cigarette brand labeling. The actual amount of nicotine available to the smoker in a given brand of cigarettes may be different from the level reported to the FTC. In one regular cigarette, the amount of nicotine ranges between about 1 mg and 2 mg.
Although 70% of smokers want to quit and 35% attempt to quit each year, fewer than 5% succeed. This is because smokers not only become physically addicted to nicotine; there is a strong psychological aspect and they often link smoking with many social activities. All of these factors make smoking a hard habit to break.
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This post was written by Quit Smoking Now on October 18, 2007
