So how does smoking effect health? There are many deadly diseases related to smoking cigarettes. The respiratory diseases that have been linked to cigarette smoking are lung cancer, cancer of the larynx, chronic bronchitis, emphysema and coronary heart disease. Damage of lungs is caused by the constant irritation of tobacco smoke. The smoke reduces the resistance of the lungs to diseases, especially bacteria and viruses. The cells can be damaged and attacked by pathogens due to the effects of constant irritation by smoke. Emphysema or Chronic bronchitis is a lung disease that destroys the elasticity of the lungs and impairs its ability to inhale and exhale properly.
Heart Disease is dramatically increased by smoking cigarette smoking. The heart disease risk factor can be increased by tobacco. Therefore, the more one smokes, the higher the chances are for heart disease. Cigarette smoking is an important risk factor in the development of lung cancer. The risk of developing lung cancer greatly increases with the years of cigarette smoking. Tobacco smoking is a carcinogen that is a cancer inducing agent .The hazards of these diseases increase with the quantity of cigarettes smoked and the length of time the habit is continued. Cigarette smoker’s are warned each time they smoke a cigarette of the deadly diseases that could effect their health. By law a warning label must appear on each pack and carton of cigarettes warning buyers of the hazards. Therefore, smokers realize cigarette smoking affects their health by meaning of lung cancer, heart disease and emphysema
Pregnant women, who smoke, pass on the toxic waste to their unborn child through the placenta therefore affecting the foetus in that the baby is often deformed, less in weight, foetal injury etc.
Equally important, is how cigarette smoke affects the health of others. What has become known as passive smoke is just as dangerous. In a closed room cigarette smoke produces enough carbon monoxide to affect everyone who is in it. There is evidence to suggest that passive smoking has the same effect on the lungs of a non-smoker as in a smoker. For this reason, smoking has become banned in public areas. Non-smokers involuntarily inhale smoke from other people’s cigarettes, which sometimes causes them eye, nose or throat irritation, in addition to coughing and sneezing. Studies have shown that non-smokers who live in the same house as a smoker has almost twice the risk of developing lung cancer as a non smoker who lives in a smoke free-environment.
As now evident smoking causes many health hazard diseases which affect many people, in general - smokers, non-smokers, and even unborn children. If the risks of smoking are so great, why do people who smoke and know of the hazards still continue to smoke? Why do smokers spend hundreds of pounds a year to fuel their addiction?
It is not possible to give one main reason why people smoke. There are many reasons and these reasons do vary from person to person. However, one reason that is consistent throughout is the fact that many people are addicted to the nicotine in the tobacco. When a person is addicted to something, the mind is in a constant need for that something, in this case cigarette (due to nicotine). There, is therefore dependence for that substance. If that substance is not taken by the person, then the person may go through a ‘withdrawal period’. During this period the person may suffer physical symptoms, e.g. feeling tired, irritable, headaches and nervousness) and an emotional need for a cigarette. This shows that if a cigarette is taken from a person’s life it can have extreme effects. This maybe is the reason why so many people worldwide spend hundreds or even thousands of pounds on cigarettes annually.
Smoking supposedly helps people to relieve stress and relax. Now in the 21st century nearly everyone is busy and therefore don’t have the time to relax and therefore have some sort of stress. This maybe a reason why so many people rely on cigarettes to get them through the day on a regular basis.
Nowadays, it is true to say that many teenagers are ‘experimenting’ more with things thus an increase in the number of teenager smokers has increased. There are a number of complex and inter-relating factors that predispose young people to smoke, and these vary among individuals and among populations. However, years of research have identified certain factors that commonly play a role in smoking initiation. These include high levels of social acceptability for tobacco products, exposure and vulnerability to tobacco marketing efforts, availability and ease of access, role modelling by parents and other adults, and peer group use. It is also true to say that young people don't often take into serious considerations of the long-term consequences of smoking. Some youths who are exposed to tobacco messages from an early age come to accept the notion that tobacco provides certain psychological benefits which will help them through adolescence.
Young people tend to underestimate the addictiveness of nicotine and the difficulties associated with quitting, tending to believe that it is easier for young people to quit than adults. The role of advertising is critical to the adolescent's conditioning process. In advertisements, tobacco users are portrayed as glamorous, popular, independent, adventurous, and macho. Children perceive smoking to be an adult behaviour, and children may often appear more grown-up. Studies show that young children are influenced by parents who smoke, forming more positive attitudes towards smoking than those living with non-smoking parents. In one study, twice as many children of smokers say that they want to smoke compared to children of non-smokers.
Exposure to peers, who smoke, increases the risk of adolescents starting to smoke. However, it appears that this influence is particularly important after the adolescent has already become susceptible to smoking. Indeed, the effect of peers is most noticeable in the transition from experimental smoking to addiction.
In conclusion to this, I believe that ultimately smoking has a negative effect on a person despite what the short-term pleasures may be. The fact that smoking has now been scientifically proven to have a link with many diseases makes it evermore likely that people who do smoke will eventually become susceptible to these diseases. The fact that smoking does not only harm the person who is smoking but people around him/her shows the extreme and very serious health risks that smoking brings about. Lack of education and understanding of young people of the long term implications of the effects of smoking, especially at an early age, is a major factor for the increase in teenage smoking. I strongly believe that the government, health advisors etc should strongly advise young people to not to start smoking and try to encourage them to resist the early temptations of smoking that they are so readily exposed to. This would be far more beneficial, in my opinion, as in the long-term it would be very difficult to break a smoking habit and to live without something that someone has been dependant and addicted too for many years.
