Cigarettes, Cigars, Chewing Tobacco, Tobacco
Butts, Coffin Nails, Fags, Snuff, Chew, Nicotine, Chaw, Stogies, Skag, Gasper, Cig, Smoke, Pill, Dog Turd
Nicotine is the active ingredient in tobacco that acts as a stimulant on the heart and nervous system. Nicotine itself is an oily alkaloid found in concentrations of approximately 2% to 5% in tobacco plants. In its pure form nicotine is colorless, has a potent odor, a strong acid taste and is highly poisonous; only one drop - approximately 50mg - can kill a person within minutes. In addition to nicotine, cigarette smoke contains some 4,000 other chemicals, several of which are known to cause cancer. Other toxins and irritants found in smoke can produce eye, nose, and throat irritation.
Steady users feel a relaxed mood. Large amounts can cause appetite loss, nausea, and headache. Due to the addictive properties of the nicotine in tobacco, the body builds up a tolerance to the drug. The toxic effects develop rapidly but the damage to the body is cumulative. Long term effects increase the chances of lung cancer and other lung diseases such as emphysema, asthma, bronchiectasis, and lung abscesses. Other long term effects include heart and blood vessel disease that may result in a heart attack, coronary heart disease, and generalized hardening of the arteries.
Interesting Fact
Towns That Keep Kids From Buying Cigarettes Have Lower Crime
An Illinois study found a link between towns with tough controls to keep kids from buying cigarettes and lower crime rates. Those towns that aggressively enforced youth tobacco laws had lowest rates of crime, including violent and property crime.
Source: American Journal of Health Promotion.
Smoking Is Leading Cause of Preventable Death
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that tobacco use remains the leading cause of preventable death in the United States. Tobacco use is responsible for more than twice the number of deaths caused by AIDS, alcohol, motor vehicle accidents, homicide, drugs and suicide combined. Of the 430,000 deaths attributable each year to smoking, 36 percent are from cancer, 28 percent from cardiovvascular disease, and 17 percent are from chronic lung disease.
In addition, an estimated 3,000 nonsmoking Americans die of lung cancer and 300,000 children suffer from infections each year because of exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke.
More information on tobacco prevention can be found at www.cdc.gov/tobacco
More than half of the cases of severe gum disease in adults may be linked to cigarette smoking
Current smokers were about four times more likely than people who never smoked to have periodontitis, according to Dr. Scott Tomar, whose findings were published in the May 2000 issue of the Journal of Periodontology.
Researchers believe smoking causes damage that makes the gums more vulnerable to bacterial infection. Tobacco can suppress the body's immune system, impeding its ability to fight infection. It also reduces blood flow to the gums, depriving them of oxygen and nutrients that allow gums to stay healthy, Tomar said.
Current smokers of more than 1 1/2 packs of cigarettes a day were nearly six times more likely than nonsmokers to have periodontitis. Those who smoked less than half a pack daily were almost three times more likely to have the disease.
The study does a good job of outlining yet another reason to quit smoking.
MARIJUANA | ALCOHOL
OPIATES | PHENCYCLIDINE
HALLUCINOGENS |
INHALANTS
CNS STIMULANTS | CNS
DEPRESSANTS
The "Rave" Scene
