Butts. Stogies. Cancer sticks. Cigs.
No matter what you call these addicting tubes of paper filled with tobacco and sprinkled with chemicals, cigarettes affect middle schoolers, the middle aged, and everyone in between. Every person either smokes cigarettes personally or at the very least, knows a handful of people who do. What piece of information would it take to put people over the edge and make them stop? Will people ever be capable of quitting?
Cigarettes are not the worst thing to be addicted to. Someone could be addicted to crack, or another hard drug. But, for your health, cigarettes are the worst thing to be addicted to. This is because for one, they cause cancer. In our lifetime, we have found out that this is not just a possibility, not a maybe, but indeed a fact.
Maybe people just aren’t bothered by cigarettes because they aren’t worried about cancer. But how could that be, when so many people die of cancer each year? Most people know of someone who has suffered due to tobacco related illnesses.Maybe even someone in your family has died of cancer. How would you feel in the hospital bed after being diagnosed with lung cancer, knowing that it could have been prevented?
It’s hard to give up a habit you’re fond of. Luckily, it’s cigarettes and not crystal meth. It can be especially hard if all of your friends are going out for a cigarette and you just want to be part of the group. You had a really hard day and can’t think of anything better than a nice cigarette break on your porch.
Think about this: according to Thetruth.com, “In the U.S., smoking results in 5.1 million years of potential life lost each year.” That’s a lot of prospective hangout sessions you won’t be having with anyone, unless you’re a zombie in a graveyard. Don’t worry about having a hard day at work: you won’t be “having” a day at all.
Another reason why cigarettes are bad: the smoke. Besides inhaling smoke in your lungs (human bodies usually like air…) the smoke in cigarettes contains carcinogens. A carcinogen is something that causes cancer. It actually does this by altering a person’s DNA. Normally, the body can detect if a cell is developing abnormally and can either fix it, or it kills off the individual cell.
Carcinogens interfere with this natural process. They allow abnormal cells to grow… and continue growing, fast. That’s what cancer is. “Rapidly dividing cells, such as in skin, the stomach lining, breast tissue, and reproductive organs, are particularly sensitive to carcinogens due to harmful DNA being quickly copied,” as found on Edinformatics.com.
So why do cigarettes contain these harmful carcinogens? Who in their right mind would want to hurt people so badly? Well, these additives were approved by the United States government. This is because they were approved for consumption, not smoking. “While these ingredients are approved as additives for foods, they were not tested by burning them, and it is the burning of many of these substances which changes their properties, often for the worse.” Did you know there are 599 chemical additives in cigarettes? These make them more addictive by enhancing the power of Nicotine. “Over 4,000 chemical compounds are created by burning a cigarette, many of which are toxic and/or carcinogenic. Carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrogen cyanide and ammonia are all present in cigarette smoke. Forty-three known carcinogens are in mainstream smoke, sidestream smoke, or both.” [Quitsmoking.about.com]
Imagine putting these poisons in your body each and every day. Not enough studies could ever be completed to find out how each little individual chemical reacts with every person’s unique system. Cyanide, ammonia and carbon monoxide all sound like they would be pretty destructive to anyone’s body, though.
It’s one thing to make a conscious decision to smoke as an adult. It’s another to make the choice for your young child to breathe in those chemicals. “Since 1964, there have been 94,000 tobacco-related fetal and infant deaths in the U.S.”[Thetruth.com] That is absolutely heartbreaking. Ninety-four thousand babies have died in the United States in the past forty or so years because of cigarettes. Think of how many more have died as adults on top of that. That’s some population control.
Here are some more facts from thetruth.com:
•Nicotine is in tobacco smoke.
•Nicotine is addictive.
•Ammonia is in tobacco smoke.
•Ammonia boosts the impact of nicotine.
•Benzene is in tobacco smoke.
•Benzene causes cancer.
•Arsenic is in tobacco smoke.
•Acetaldehyde is in tobacco smoke.
•Acetaldehyde is a hazardous air pollutant.
•Carbon monoxide is in tobacco smoke.
•Carbon monoxide is a toxic gas which can cause death.
•Radioactive Polonium-210 is found in cigarette smoke.
•Polonium-210 contributes to cancer.
•In the U.S., 443,000 people die a tobacco-related death every year.
•In the U.S., tobacco kills more Americans than AIDS, alcohol, car accidents, murders,
suicides, other drugs,
and fires COMBINED.
If that last fact isn’t enough to even make cigarette smokers think twice about what they’re doing, then nothing else will. If you keep telling yourself that you’re just going to smoke while you’re in college and then quit, then what are you going to do if you become addicted? Nothing will ever feel as good as a cigarette does. Today, “Over 8.5 million Americans live with tobacco-related illnesses [Thetruth.com].” Do you want to be one of those people?
People look really cool when they’re smoking cigarettes, you know. It shows that they don’t care. But what it really shows is that they’ve bought into the mainstream idea that cigarettes are cool. The companies that make truckloads of money off of smokers want them to think that they’re cool. Even our government, which makes tons of money off of the taxes on cigarettes, wants you to feel cool as you take each and every puff.
Your body is a fragile organism, and it doesn’t take much to figure out that putting these poisons in your body each day will eventually be what kills you. Maybe you don’t care now, but maybe someday you will. Then, the choice will already have been made. There are cooler ways to die!
[The Clock does not condone drug use. Article is for informational purposes only.]