Because smoking feels good. It stimulates and focuses the mind at the same time that it soothes and satisfies. The concentrated dose of nicotine in a drag off a cigarette triggers an immediate flood of dopamine and other neurochemicals that wash over the brain’s pleasure centers. Inhaling tobacco smoke is the quickest, most efficient way to get nicotine to the brain.
“I completely understand why you wouldn’t want to give it up,” said Dr. David Abrams, an addiction researcher at the National Institutes of Health. “It’s more difficult to get off nicotine than heroin or cocaine.”
Smoking “hijacks” the reward systems in the brain that drive you to seek food, water and sex, Dr. Abrams explained, driving you to seek nicotine with the same urgency. “Your brain thinks that this has to do with survival of the species,” he said.
Some Facts:
- Smoking’s history dates back to as early as 5000–3000 BC
- Smoking is practiced by some 1.5 billion people
- Most adults who started smoking in their teens never expected to become addicted.
Health effects of tobacco
Tobacco use leads most commonly to diseases affecting the heart and lungs, with smoking being a major risk factor for heart attacks, strokes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), emphysema, and cancer (particularly lung cancer, cancers of the larynx and mouth, and pancreatic cancer). Cigarette smoking increases the risk of Crohn’s disease as well as the severity of the course of the disease. It is also the number one cause of bladder cancer.
The World Health Organization estimate that tobacco caused 5.4 million deaths in 2004 and 100 million deaths over the course of the 20th century. Similarly, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describes tobacco use as “the single most important preventable risk to human health in developed countries and an important cause of premature death worldwide.”
Rates of smoking have leveled off or declined in the developed world. Smoking rates in the United States have dropped by half from 1965 to 2006 falling from 42% to 20.8% in adults. In the developing world, tobacco consumption is rising by 3.4% per year.
Passive smoking presents a very real health risk. 603 000 deaths were attributable to second-hand smoke in 2004
electronic cigarette
head and torso of a male with internal organs shown and labels referring to the effects of tobacco smoking
Common adverse effects of tobacco smoking. The more common effects are in bold face.
Electronic Cigarettes – A Healthier Alternative To Smoking
There is a brand new invention that everyone who smokes should know about. It’s called the electronic cigarette, also known as a smokeless cigarette or e-cigarette, and it is changing the legal landscape for cigarette smokers around the world.
The Electronic Cigarette offers to effectively simulate the experience of smoking an actual cigarette, without any of the health or legal issues surrounding traditional cigarettes.
While Electronic cigarettes look, feel and taste much like traditional cigarettes, they function very differently. You see, electronic cigarettes do not actually burn any tobacco, but rather, when you inhale from an e-cigarette, you activate a “flow censor” which releases a water vapor containing nicotine, propylene glycol, and a scent that simulates the flavor of tobacco. All of which simply means that electronic cigarettes allow you to get your nicotine fix while avoiding all of the cancer causing agents found in traditional cigarettes such as tar, glue, hundreds of additives, and hydrocarbons.
In addition to being healthier than traditional cigarettes, and perhaps most importantly of all, is the fact that electronic cigarettes are completely legal. Because Electronic cigarettes do not involve tobacco, you can legally smoke them anywhere that traditional electronic cigarette
The refillable cartridges come in a multitude of flavors as well as nicotine strengths. You can get regular, menthol, even apple and strawberry flavored cartridges and nicotine strengths come in full, medium, light, and none. While electronic cigarettes are technically a “smoking alternative” rather than a smoking cessation device, the range of nicotine strengths offers some obvious potential as an aid in the ones attempts to quit smoking and seems to be proving popular within that market.
The nice thing about electronic cigarettes as apposed to say, nicotine patches, is that e-cigarettes produce the same tactile sensation and oral fixation that smokers desire, while satisfying ones tobacco cravings as well. When you take a drag from n electronic cigarette you actually feel the your lungs fill with a warm tobacco flavored smoke and when you exhale the smoke billows out of your lungs just like regular smoking, however, as mentioned, that smoke is actually a much healthier water vapor that quickly evaporates and therefore does not offend anyone in the immediate vicinity.
While electronic cigarettes have been around for a while in various incarnations, it has been recent advances in the technology as well as ever increasing restrictions against smoking that have propelled the e-cigarette into a new found popularity. If you are interested in a healthier alternative to smoking, or if you simply want to have the freedom to smoke wherever and whenever you want, an electronic cigarette might be the solution you’ve been looking for.
Electronic Cigarette – The Next Quit Smoking Device
Electronic cigarettes (also known as smokeless cigarettes and electric cigarettes) are the newest product on the market. They are designed to look and feel like real cigarettes, even down to emitting artificial smoke however they do not actually contain any tobacco. Users inhale nicotine vapour which looks like smoke without any of the carcinogens found in tobacco smoke which are harmful to the smoker and others around him.
Ever since the public became aware about the dangers of smoking a few decades ago, many people have found quitting the tobacco habit hard. Companies have been innovating and manufacturing smoking cessation products for many years now. From nicotine patches to gum, nicotine addicts have been using them to quit their habit.
The Electronic cigarette consists of a nicotine cartridge containing liquid nicotine. When a user inhales, a tiny battery powered atomizer turns a small amount of liquid nicotine into vapour. Inhaling nicotine vapour gives the user a nicotine hit in seconds rather than minutes with patches or gum. When the user inhales, a small LED light at the tip of the electronic cigarette glows orange to simulate a real cigarette.
The nicotine cartridges themselves come in various strengths. Most of the major brands, have full strength, half strength and minimal strength. This is designed for people who want to quit smoking. As they get used to using the electronic cigarette, they can gradually reduce the strength they use until they quit.
The main advantages electronic cigarettes have over nicotine patches or gum is firstly, users have the nicotine hit much quicker and secondly, because a big reason why smokers fail to quit suing patches and gum is because they still miss the act of inhaling smoke from a cylindrical object. The electronic cigarette emulates that even down to the smoke.
The electronic cigarette is also beneficial from a financial perspective. A set of five nicotine cartridges costs around 8 Euro and is equivalent to 500 cheap cigarettes. Although the initial investment of an electronic cigarette kit of 50 Euro may seem steep at first, users save money in the long run.