Two years ago, I visited my doctor. She told me I had pleurisy. Pleurisy is an illness that rests between the lungs and the tissues surrounding the lungs, making each breath a painful ordeal. I continued to smoke even though I was in great pain. I was just that addicted. I could not stop smoking cigarettes. My visit to the doctor quickly changed all of that.

My doctor always advised me to stop smoking cigarettes but she did not lecture me during the visit. She started to write a prescription for antibiotics and something stopped her. She asked, “Is there any way that you could be pregnant?” I thought for a moment and said that maybe we should have a test just to be sure. It turns out that I was.

I went home after picking up my prescription for an antibiotic that was safe for unborn babies. I did not want a cigarette at all. The only thing I could think about was telling my husband the good news. After I got better, I found my cigarettes in my purse and just threw them away. I had quit smoking without even thinking about it.

The combination of being sick with a lung infection and finding out that I was pregnant really pushed me into a mental state that helped me to stop smoking cigarettes. To be honest, I believe that I would have continued to smoke if I wasn’t pregnant.

I still think about smoking, but it’s more in terms of why I should have quit and why I should never smoke again. I do not want to send the message that smoking is okay to my daughter. It is very easy to tell our children that smoking is very bad for our health, but it is difficult to be a good role model when you are addicted to tobacco.

I’m very glad that having a baby gave me the incentive to stop smoking cigarettes and I’m even more pleased that having a child continues to keep me from starting the habit again. I have saved a lot of money over the past two years. I put the money that I was spending on cigarettes into my daughter’s savings account. I thought that it was the least I could do to show my appreciation for the gift she gave to me.

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Anyone who has taken up the habit of smoking cigarettes probably knows how difficult it is to quit.

Going “cold turkey” is not only unrealistic it can also be physically painful as you experience withdrawals. Smoking cessation therapy is designed to help you kick the habit using a systematic approach that is organized in different stages.

The various stages of smoking cessation therapy are the foundation for the behavioral management program. The approach is helpful in taking a compassionate perspective to your dilemma. Not only are you faced with a physical addiction you may also be faced with an excessive amount of stress over this expensive habit.

There are a number of ways that non-smokers try to encourage someone who smokes to quit the habit but these strategies fall short. A smoker is probably quite aware of the health hazards associated with the habit as well as the expense of buying this high-tax item.

Smoking cessation therapy does not use guilt or pressure to encourage you to stop the habit but it does help you use the information that you already know in a proactive way. It does this through the various stages of its approach. Breaking down the process of quitting cigarettes is a fundamental benefit for smoking cessation therapy for a number of reasons.

If you are not ready to quit then you will not quit. Smoking cessation therapy actually introduces you to the quitting process in its preparation stage. You decide that it is time to quit and you also work towards really wanting to quit through this stage. This may be the most important step for a smoker to take.

Once you have made a true commitment then you will need to build a support group. Smoking cessation therapy recognizes that you should not go through the process alone and it helps you work with friends, family as well as others who are in the smoking cessation therapy group.

The process of quitting is never easy and you really want to make sure that you have a solid plan of action that includes a support group. Smoking cessation therapy also introduces various supplemental options like nicotine gum and medication to help ease you through the next stages. During stage one, you decide which supplements, if any, you would like to use.

Smoking cessation therapy does all of this before you begin your efforts to stop smoking cigarettes. This is a fundamental start that is usually lacking in other approaches. After you have completed stage one, you are well on your way to achieving great success.

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Smoking Awareness About Reasons For Continued Smoking

The reasons given by smokers for this activity are broadly categorized as “addictive smoking”, “pleasure from smoking”, “tension reduction/relaxation”, “social smoking”, “stimulation”, “habit/automatism”, and “handling”. There are gender differences in how much each of these reasons contribute, with females more likely than males to cite “tension reduction/relaxation”, “stimulation” and “social smoking”.

Some smokers[who?] argue that the depressant effect of smoking allows them to calm their nerves, often allowing for increased concentration. However, according to the Imperial College London, “Nicotine seems to provide both a stimulant and a depressant effect, and it is likely that the effect it has at any time is determined by the mood of the user, the environment and the circumstances of use. Studies have suggested that low doses have a depressant effect, whilst higher doses have stimulant effect.” However, it is impossible to differentiate a drug effect brought on by nicotine use, and the alleviation of nicotine withdrawal.[citation needed]

Smoking Awareness About Religious views on smoking

In most major religions, tobacco smoking is not specifically prohibited, although it may be discouraged as an immoral habit.

Communal smoking of a sacred tobacco pipe is a common ritual of many Native American tribes, and was considered a sacred part of their religion. Sema, the Anishinaabe word for tobacco, was grown for ceremonial use and considered the ultimate sacred plant since its smoke was believed to carry prayers to the heavens. The tobacco used during these rituals varies widely in potency — the Nicotiana rustica species used in South America, for instance, has up to twice the nicotine content of the common North American N. tabacum.

Before the health risks of smoking were identified through controlled study, smoking was considered an immoral habit by certain Christian preachers and social reformers. The founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, Joseph Smith, Jr, recorded that on February 27, 1833, he received a revelation which addressed tobacco use. Eventually accepted as a commandment, adherent Mormons do not smoke.

Jehovah’s Witnesses base their stand against smoking on the Bible’s command to “clean ourselves of every defilement of flesh” (2 Corinthians 7:1)

The Jewish Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan (1838–1933) was one of the first Jewish authorities to speak out on smoking.

In the Sikh religion, tobacco smoking is strictly forbidden.

Smoking Awareness About Smoking cessation

Many of tobacco’s health effects can be minimized through smoking cessation. The British doctors study showed that those who stopped smoking before they reached 30 years of age lived almost as long as those who never smoked. It is also possible to reduce the risks by reducing the frequency of smoking and by proper diet and exercise. Some research has indicated that some of the damage caused by smoking tobacco can be moderated with the use of antioxidants.

Smokers wanting to quit or to temporarily abstain from smoking can use a variety of nicotine-containing tobacco substitutes, or nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) products to temporarily lessen the physical withdrawal symptoms, the most popular being nicotine gum and lozenges. Nicotine patches are also used for smoking cessation. Medications that do not contain nicotine can also be used, such as bupropion (Zyban or Wellbutrin) and varenicline (Chantix).

Peer support can be helpful, such as that provided by support groups and telephone quitlines.

Demographics

Cigarettes are smoked by over 1.1 billion people. While smoking rates have leveled off or declined in developed nations, in the developing world tobacco consumption continues to rise at a rate of around 3.4% per annum.

Smoking Prevalence by Gender

PERCENT SMOKING
REGION     MEN     WOMEN
Africa     29     4
United States     35     22
Eastern Mediterranean     35     4
Europe     46     26
Southeast Asia     44     4
Western Pacific     60     8
(2000, World Health Organization estimates)

Smoking rates in the United States have dropped by half from 1965 to 2006 falling from 42% to 20.8% of adults.. There are large regional differences in smoking rates, with Kentucky, West Virginia, Oklahoma and Mississippi topping the list, and Idaho, California and Utah at significantly lower rates.

In Australia the incidence of smoking is in decline, with figures from 2004-5 showing 23% of the population to be current smokers, a decline of 2% compared to 1995. Amongst the indigenous population, the rate is much higher, with 51% of men and 49% of women reported being current daily smokers. Young adults are the most likely age group to smoke, with a marked decline in smoking rates with increasing age. The prevalence of smoking is strongly associated with socioeconomic disadvantage, with over double the rate in the most disadvantaged quintile of the population as compared to the least.

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Many anti-smoking organizations claim that teenagers begin their smoking habits due to peer pressure, and cultural influence portrayed by friends. However, one study found that direct pressure to smoke cigarettes did not play a significant part in adolescent smoking. In that study, adolescents also reported low levels of both normative and direct pressure to smoke cigarettes.

A similar study showed that individuals play a more active role in starting to smoke than has previously been acknowledged and that social processes other than peer pressure need to be taken into account. Another study’s results revealed that peer pressure was significantly associated with smoking behavior across all age and gender cohorts, but that intrapersonal factors were significantly more important to the smoking behavior of 12–13 year-old girls than same-age boys.

Within the 14–15 year-old age group, one peer pressure variable emerged as a significantly more important predictor of girls’ than boys’ smoking. It is debated whether peer pressure or self-selection is a greater cause of adolescent smoking. It is arguable that the reverse of peer-pressure is true, when the majority of peers do not smoke and ostracize those who do.

Smoking Awareness About Parental smoking

Children of smoking parents are more likely to smoke than children with non-smoking parents. One study found that parental smoking cessation was associated with less adolescent smoking, except when the other parent currently smoked. A current study tested the relation of adolescent smoking to rules regulating where adults are allowed to smoke in the home. Results showed that restrictive home smoking policies were associated with lower likelihood of trying smoking for both middle and high school students.

Smoking Awareness About Depictions of smoking in movies, on television, and in games

Exposure to smoking in movies has been linked with adolescent smoking initiation in cross-sectional studies. Films tend to have a high incidence of smoking behavior vis-a-vis the general population. According to a study of movies created between 1988 and 1997, eighty-seven percent of these movies portrayed various tobacco use, with an average of 5 occurrences per film.

R-rated movies had the greatest number of occurrences and were most likely to feature major characters using tobacco. Despite the declining tobacco use in the society, the incidence of smoking in 2002 movies was nearly the same as in 1950 movies.

Universal Pictures has a “Policy Regarding Tobacco Depictions in Films”. In films anticipated to be released in the United States with a G, PG or PG-13 rating, smoking incidents (depiction of tobacco smoking, tobacco-related signage or paraphernalia) appear only when there is a substantial reason for doing so. In that case the film is released with a health warning in end credits, DVD packaging, etc.

Since May 2007 the Motion Picture Association of America may give a film glamorizing smoking or depicting pervasive smoking outside of a historic or other mitigating context a higher rating.

There have also been moves to reduce the depiction of protagonists smoking in television shows, especially those aimed at children. For example, Ted Turner took steps to remove or edit scenes that depict characters smoking in cartoons such as Tom and Jerry, The Flintstones and Scooby-Doo, which are shown on his Cartoon Network and Boomerang television channels.

There are also indications in the TIGRS video game content rating system.

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The two main theories are the phenotypic causation (gateway) model and the correlated liabilities model. The causation model argues that smoking is a primary influence on future drug use, while the correlated liabilities model argues that smoking and other drug use are predicated on genetic or environmental factors.

About The use of smoking to project an image

Famous smokers of the past used cigarettes or pipes as part of their image, such as Jean Paul Sartre’s Gauloise-brand cigarettes, Albert Einstein’s, Joseph Stalin’s, Douglas MacArthur’s, Bertrand Russell’s, and Bing Crosby’s pipes, or the news broadcaster Edward R. Murrow’s cigarette. Writers in particular seemed to be known for smoking; see, for example, Cornell Professor Richard Klein’s book Cigarettes are Sublime for the analysis, by this professor of French literature, of the role smoking plays in 19th and 20th century letters.

The popular author Kurt Vonnegut addressed his addiction to cigarettes within his novels. British Prime Minister Harold Wilson was well known for smoking a pipe in public as was Winston Churchill for his cigars. Sherlock Holmes, the fictional detective created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle smoked a pipe, cigarettes, and cigars, besides injecting himself with cocaine, “to keep his overactive brain occupied during the dull London days, when nothing happened”.

The DC Vertigo comic book character, John Constantine, created by Alan Moore, is synonymous with smoking, so much so that the first storyline by Preacher creator, Garth Ennis, centred around John Constantine contracting lung cancer. Professional wrestler James Fullington, while in character as “The Sandman”, is a chronic smoker in order to appear “tough”.

About Reasons for smoking and factors affecting its takeup

About  Tobacco advertising

Before the 1970s, most tobacco advertising was legal in the United States and most European nations. In the United States, in the 1950s and 1960s, cigarette brands were frequently sponsors of television shows—most notably shows such as To Tell the Truth and I’ve Got a Secret. One of the most famous television jingles of the era came from an advertisement for Winston cigarettes.

The slogan “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should!” proved to be catchy, and is still quoted today. Other popular slogans from the 1960s were “Us Tareyton smokers would rather fight than switch!,” which was used to advertise Tareyton cigarettes, and “I’d Walk a Mile for a Camel”.

In the 1950s, manufacturers began adding filter tips to cigarettes to remove some of the tar and nicotine as they were smoked. “Safer”, “less potent” cigarette brands were also introduced. Light cigarettes became so popular that, as of 2004, half of American smokers preferred them over regular cigarettes , in spite the fact that the idea of a “safer” cigarette is a myth.

Cigarettes that offer “low tar and nicotine” cause the smoker to smoke more or to inhale more deeply to get the same level of nicotine. According to The Federal Government’s National Cancer Institute (NCI), light cigarettes provide no benefit to smoker’s health.

In the United States, it was believed by many that tobacco companies are marketing tobacco smoking to minors. For example, Reynolds American Inc. used the Joe Camel cartoon character to advertise Camel cigarettes. Other brands such as Virginia Slims targeted women with slogans like “You’ve Come a Long Way Baby”.

In 1964, the Surgeon General of the United States, released the Surgeon General’s Advisory Committee Report on Smoking and Health. It was based on over 7000 scientific articles that linked tobacco use with cancer and other diseases. This report led to laws requiring warning labels on tobacco products and to restrictions on tobacco advertisements.

As these began to come into force, tobacco marketing became more subtle, with sweets shaped like cigarettes put on the market, and a number of advertisements designed to appeal to children, particularly those featuring Joe Camel resulting in increased awareness and uptake of smoking among children. However, restrictions did have an effect on adult quit rates, with its use declining to the point that by 2004, nearly half of all Americans who had ever smoked had quit.

Many nations, including Russia and Greece,[citation needed] still allow billboards advertising tobacco use. Tobacco smoking is still advertised in special magazines, during sporting events, in gas stations and stores, and in more rare cases on television. Some nations, including the UK and Australia, have begun anti-smoking advertisements to counter the effects of tobacco advertising.

The actual effectiveness of tobacco advertisement is widely documented. According to an opinion piece by Henry Saffer, public health experts say that tobacco advertising increases cigarette consumption and there is much empirical literature that finds a significant effect of tobacco advertising on smoking, especially in children. A Dutch tobacco company manufactures “Pink Elephant” vanilla-flavored cigarettes, and “Black Devil” chocolate-flavored cigarettes.

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Data on both positions is limited. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published research in 2002 claiming that the cost of each pack of cigarettes sold in the United States was more than $7 in medical care and lost productivity. The cost may be higher, with another study putting it as high as $41 per pack, most of which however is on the individual and his/her family. This is how one author of that study puts it when he explains the very low cost for others: “The reason the number is low is that for private pensions, Social Security, and Medicare — the biggest factors in calculating costs to society — smoking actually saves money. Smokers die at a younger age and don’t draw on the funds they’ve paid into those systems.”

By contrast, some non-scientific studies, including one conducted by Philip Morris in the Czech Republic and another by the Cato Institute, support the opposite position. Neither study was peer-reviewed nor published in a scientific journal, and the Cato Institute have received funding from tobacco companies in the past.[citation needed] Philip Morris has explicitly apologised for the former study, saying: “The funding and public release of this study which, among other things, detailed purported cost savings to the Czech Republic due to premature deaths of smokers, exhibited terrible judgment as well as a complete and unacceptable disregard of basic human values. For one of our tobacco companies to commission this study was not just a terrible mistake, it was wrong. All of us at Philip Morris, no matter where we work, are extremely sorry for this. No one benefits from the very real, serious and significant diseases caused by smoking.”

Between 1970 an 1995, per-capita cigarette consumption in poorer developing countries increased by 67 percent, while it dropped by 10 percent in the richer developed world. Eighty percent of smokers now live in less developed countries. By 2030, the World Health Organization (WHO) forecasts that 10 million people a year will die of smoking-related illness, making it the single biggest cause of death worldwide, with the largest increase to be among women. WHO forecasts’ the 21st century’s death rate from smoking to be ten times the 20th century’s rate. (“Washingtonian” magazine, December 2007).

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Data from multiple studies suggest that anxiety disorders such as depression play a role in cigarette smoking. A history of regular smoking was observed more frequently among individuals who had experienced a major depressive disorder at some time in their lives than among individuals who had never experienced major depression or among individuals with no psychiatric diagnosis.

People with major depression are also much less likely to quit due to the increased risk of experiencing mild to severe states of depression, including a major depressive episode. Depressed smokers appear to experience more withdrawal symptoms on quitting, are less likely to be successful at quitting, and are more likely to relapse.

Addiction Awarness About Health Benefits of Smoking

Studies suggest that smoking decreases appetite, but did not conclude that overweight people should smoke or that their health would improve by smoking.

Several types of “Smoker’s Paradoxes”, (cases where smoking appears to have specific beneficial effects), have been observed; often the actual mechanism remains undetermined. Risk of ulcerative colitis has been frequently shown to be reduced by smokers on a dose-dependent basis; the effect is eliminated if the individual stops smoking.

Smoking appears to interfere with development of Kaposi’s sarcoma, breast cancer among women carrying the very high risk BRCA gene, preeclampsia, and atopic disorders such as allergic asthma. A plausible mechanism of action in these cases may be the nicotine in tobacco smoke acting as an anti-inflammatory agent and interfering with the disease process.

Evidence suggests that non-smokers are up to twice as likely as smokers to develop Parkinson’s disease or Alzheimer’s disease. A plausible explanation for these cases may be the effect of nicotine, a cholinergic stimulant, decreasing the levels of acetylcholine in the smoker’s brain; Parkinson’s disease occurs when the effect of dopamine is less than that of acetylcholine.

In addition, nicotine stimulates the mesolimbic dopamine pathway (as do other drugs of abuse), causing an effective increase in dopamine levels. Opponents counter by noting that consumption of pure nicotine may be as beneficial as smoking without the risks associated with smoking.

It has been hypothesized that schizophrenics smoke for self-medication. Considering the high rates of physical sickness and deaths among persons suffering from schizophrenia, one of smoking’s short term benefits is its temporary effect to improve alertness and cognitive functioning in that disease.

It has been postulated that the mechanism of this effect is that schizophrenics have a disturbance of nicotinic receptor functioning. Rates of smoking have been found to be much higher in schizophrenics.

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Prior to habituation, tobacco smokers often focus on the reinforcing properties of smoking rather than the associated health risks[citation needed]. The diseases caused by smoking surface relatively later in life, so they do not serve to deter smoking.

Addiction Awarness About Passive smoking

Passive or involuntary smoking occurs when the exhaled and ambient smoke (otherwise known as environmental or secondhand smoke) from one person’s cigarette is inhaled by other people. Passive smoking involves inhaling carcinogens, as well as other toxic components, that are present in secondhand tobacco smoke.

Secondhand smoke is known to harm children, infants and reproductive health through acute lower respiratory tract illness, asthma induction and exacerbation, chronic respiratory symptoms, middle ear infection, lower birth weight babies, and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or SIDS.

In a study published on August 25, 2004 smoke-free policies were linked to a short-term reduction in admissions for acute myocardial infarction. In a study released on February 12, 2006 warning signs for cardiovascular disease are higher in people exposed to secondhand tobacco smoke, adding to the link between “passive smoke” and heart disease.

“Our study provides further evidence to suggest low-level exposure to secondhand smoke has a clinically important effect on susceptibility to cardiovascular disease,” said Dr. Andrea Venn of University of Nottingham in Britain, lead author of the study.

According to the U.S. Surgeon General’s Report (Chapter 5; pages 180–194), secondhand smoke is connected to SIDS.[33] Infants who die from SIDS tend to have higher concentrations of nicotine and cotinine (a biological marker for secondhand smoke exposure) in their lungs than those who die from other causes. Infants exposed to secondhand smoke after birth are also at a greater risk of SIDS.

According to earlier studies the smoking ban led to significant improvements regarding respiratory symptoms and lung function in people visiting bars and restaurants. Previously scientists stated that environmental tobacco smoke leads to coronary heart disease, lung cancer and premature death.

The case is available in the February edition of the American Journal of Industrial Medicine.

Addiction Awarness About Somatic and psychological effects

Nicotine is a highly addictive psychoactive chemical. When tobacco is smoked, most of the nicotine is pyrolyzed; a dose sufficient to cause mild somatic dependency and mild to strong psychological dependency remains. There is also a formation of harmane (a MAO inhibitor) from the acetaldehyde in cigarette smoke, which seems to play an important role in nicotine addiction probably by facilitating dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens in response to nicotine stimuli.

According to studies by Henningfield and Benowitz, overall nicotine is more addictive than cannabis, caffeine, ethanol, cocaine, and heroin when considering both somatic and psychological dependence. However, due to the stronger withdrawal effects of ethanol, cocaine and heroin, nicotine may have a lower potential for somatic dependence than these substances.

A study by Perrine concludes that nicotine’s potential for psychological dependency exceeds all other studied drugs – even ethanol, an extremely physically addictive substance with severe withdrawal symptoms that can be fatal. About half of Canadians who currently smoke have tried to quit. McGill University health professor Jennifer O’Loughlin stated that nicotine addiction can occur as soon as five months after the start of smoking.

Recent evidence has shown that smoking tobacco increases the release of dopamine in the brain, specifically in the mesolimbic pathway, the same neuro-reward circuit activated by drugs of abuse such as heroin and cocaine. This suggests nicotine use has a pleasurable effect that triggers positive reinforcement.

One study found that smokers exhibit better reaction-time and memory performance compared to non-smokers, which is consistent with increased activation of dopamine receptors. Neurologically, rodent studies have found that nicotine self-administration causes lowering of reward thresholds–a finding opposite that of most other drugs of abuse (e.g. cocaine and heroin).

This increase in reward circuit sensitivity persisted months after the self-administration ended, suggesting that nicotine’s alteration of brain reward function is either long lasting or permanent. Furthermore, it has been found that nicotine can activate long term potentiation in vivo and in vitro. These studies suggests nicotine’s “trace memory” may contribute to difficulties in nicotine abstinence.

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An extremely carcinogenic (cancer-causing) metabolite of benzopyrene, a polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbon, produced by burning tobacco.

Smoke, or any partially burnt organic matter, is carcinogenic (cancer-causing). The damage a continuing smoker does to their lungs can take up to 20 years before its physical manifestation in lung cancer. Women began smoking later than men, so the rise in death rate amongst women did not appear until later.

The male lung cancer death rate decreased in 1975 — roughly 20 years after the fall in cigarette consumption in men. A fall in consumption in women also began in 1975 but by 1991 had not manifested in a decrease in lung cancer related mortalities amongst women.

Smoke contains several carcinogenic pyrolysis products that bind to DNA and cause genetic mutations. Particularly potent carcinogens are polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), which are toxicated to mutagenic epoxides.

The first PAH to be identified as a carcinogen in tobacco smoke was benzopyrene, which has been shown to toxicate into an epoxide that irreversibly attaches to a cell’s nuclear DNA, which may either kill the cell or cause a genetic mutation.

If the mutation inhibits programmed cell death, the cell can survive to become a cancer cell. Similarly, acrolein, which is abundant in tobacco smoke, also irreversibly binds to DNA, causes mutations and thus also cancer. However, it needs no activation to become carcinogenic.

The carcinogenity of tobacco smoke is not explained by nicotine per se, which is not carcinogenic or mutagenic. However, it inhibits apoptosis, therefore accelerating existing cancers. Also, NNK, a nicotine derivative converted from nicotine, can be carcinogenic.

To reduce cancer risk[citation needed] but to deliver nicotine, there are tobacco products such as the e-cigarette where the tobacco is not pyrolysed, but the nicotine is vaporized with solvent such as glycerol[citation needed]. However, such products have not become popular.

Addiction Awarness About Lung dysfunction

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) caused by smoking, known as tobacco disease, is a permanent, incurable reduction of pulmonary capacity characterized by shortness of breath, wheezing, persistent cough with sputum, and damage to the lungs, including emphysema and chronic bronchitis.

Addiction Awarness About Effects on the heart

Smoking contributes to the risk of developing heart disease. All smoke contains very fine particulates that are able to penetrate the alveolar wall into the blood and exert their effects on the heart in a short time.

Inhalation of tobacco smoke causes several immediate responses within the heart and blood vessels. Within one minute the heart rate begins to rise, increasing by as much as 30 percent during the first 10 minutes of smoking. Carbon monoxide in tobacco smoke exerts its negative effects by reducing the blood’s ability to carry oxygen.

Smoking tends to increase blood cholesterol levels. Furthermore, the ratio of high-density lipoprotein (the “good” cholesterol) to low-density lipoprotein (the “bad” cholesterol) tends to be lower in smokers compared to non-smokers. Smoking also raises the levels of fibrinogen and increases platelet production (both involved in blood clotting) which makes the blood viscous.

Carbon monoxide binds to haemoglobin (the oxygen-carrying component in red blood cells), resulting in a much stabler complex than haemoglobin bound with oxygen or carbon dioxide — the result is permanent loss of blood cell functionality. Blood cells are naturally recycled after a certain period of time, allowing for the creation of new, functional erythrocytes.

However, if carbon monoxide exposure reaches a certain point before they can be recycled, hypoxia (and later death) occurs. All these factors make smokers more at risk of developing various forms of arteriosclerosis. As the arteriosclerosis progresses, blood flows less easily through rigid and narrowed blood vessels, making the blood more likely to form a thrombosis (clot).

Sudden blockage of a blood vessel may lead to an infarction (e.g. stroke). However, it is also worth noting that the effects of smoking on the heart may be more subtle. These conditions may develop gradually given the smoking-healing cycle (the human body heals itself between periods of smoking).

Therefore a smoker may develop less significant disorders such as worsening or maintenance of unpleasant dermatological conditions, e.g. eczema, due to reduced blood supply. Smoking also increases blood pressure and weakens blood vessels.

After a ban on smoking in all enclosed public places was introduced in Scotland in March 2006, there was a 17 percent reduction in hospital admissions for acute coronary syndrome. 67% of the decrease occurred in non-smokers.

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The main health risks in tobacco pertain to diseases of the cardiovascular system, in particular myocardial infarction (heart attack), cardiovascular disease, diseases of the respiratory tract such as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), asthma, emphysema, and cancer, particularly lung cancer and cancers of the larynx and tongue.

A person’s increased risk of contracting disease is directly proportional to the length of time that a person continues to smoke as well as the amount smoked. However, if someone stops smoking, then these chances gradually decrease as the damage to their body is repaired.

A year after quitting, the risk of contracting heart disease is half that of a continuing smoker. The health risks of smoking are not uniform across all smokers.

Risks vary according to amount of tobacco smoked, with those who smoke more at greater risk. Light smoking is still a health risk. Likewise, smoking “light” cigarettes does not reduce the risks.

The data regarding smoking to date focuses primarily on cigarette smoking, which increases mortality rates by 40% in those who smoke less than 10 cigarettes a day, by 70% in those who smoke 10–19 a day, by 90% in those who smoke 20–39 a day, and by 120% in those smoking two packs a day or more.

Pipe smoking has also been researched and found to increase the risk of various cancers by 33%.

Some studies suggest that hookah smoking is considered to be safer than other forms of smoking. However, water is not effective for removing all relevant toxins, e.g. the carcinogenic aromatic hydrocarbons are not water-soluble.

Several negative health effects are linked to hookah smoking and studies indicate that it is likely to be more harmful than cigarettes, due in part to the volume of smoke inhaled.

In addition to the cancer risk, there is some risk of infectious disease resulting from pipe sharing, and other risks associated with the common addition of other psychoactive drugs to the tobacco.

Diseases caused by tobacco smoking are significant hazards to public health. According to the Canadian Lung Association, tobacco kills between 40,000–45,000 Canadians per year, more than the total number of deaths from AIDS, traffic accidents, suicide, murder, fires and accidental poisoning.

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.”

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