Smoking is Not Cool - It Kills


by Sandy Tonsing - Date: 2007-04-25 - Word Count: 509 Share This!

For a teenager who has just started college, the greatest desire is to get peer acceptance and to be popular. Smoking seems to be the most happening thing to do. In fact, in the minds of teenagers who idolize and try to act like celebrities and rock stars, smoking is the coolest thing. They think that smoking will give them that mature, hunky and glamorous look.

They see smoking as a fashion and hence adopt it as a fashion statement; the harms of smoking never come into their minds although they very well know about the ill effects of smoking. They consider smoking to be a passing thing and think that they will quit after they leave college. They never think that they can get hooked to it. Because they think too high of themselves they feel that nothing is difficult for them, not even quit smoking, they can easily give up whenever they want. Awareness about the actual working of nicotine and its effect on the brain is still very less.

Nicotine, one of the 4000 harmful chemicals found in tobacco is colorless and volatile liquid alkaloid, upon exposure to air it turns brown, the tobacco color. The actual content of nicotine can vary from 0.2% to 5% in a cigarette. When tobacco is smoked it reaches the brain within 15 seconds and the effect can last for up to 2 hours.

In the brain Nicotine stimulates the nicotinic receptor which in turn activates the neurotransmitter dopamine which is known as the pleasure cell. Thereby there is an increase in alertness, heart beat and increase in blood pressure. The body learns to adapt these changes when nicotine is inhaled. Therefore, when a person smokes for a long time the body gets used to it and thus becomes addicted to nicotine.

Once a person is in the grip of nicotine it is very hard to come out of it. The social smoking thing will become an addiction which can carry you to your grave. The addictive nature of nicotine is greater than heroin. However, if a person really tries to quit smoking it is not an impossible task. Fortunately, for the generations of today there are many medications available to combat smoking.

There is medical treatment therapy where in replacement to nicotine will be given like Nicotine gums, Nicotine patches, Nicotine lozenges, Nicotine inhaler etc. There is also oral medicine called chantix which is a prescription medicine, having varenicline as its main component. Chantix is the trademark drug of Pfizer Inc. which got approval from U.S. FDA on May 11, 2006, as a treatment for anti-smoking in adults.

Therefore, before the ill effects of smoking catch up with you quit smoking today while you are still young. When you began to get the sicknesses caused due to smoking like lung cancer, chronic bronchitis, emphysemas, heart diseases, cancer of different kinds, impotency etc you will realize that smoking is not at all cool rather it is very uncool as it kills. Before nicotine possesses and kills you without mercy 'Quit Smoking' and say "NO" to Tobacco.


Related Tags: nicotine, quit smoking, smoking, anti smoking, tobacco, pfizer, chantix, fashion statement

The author is a health expert and writes articles on various issues related to the causes as well as consequences of smoking and also on the quit smoking medicine chantix. For more information, details and advice on smoking related matters, visit the website http://www.chantixhome.com

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