TOBACCO Since the year of 1900,
cigarette smoking has beco me a natural drug activity. It is compared only
to alcohol consumption. However, statistics show that the number of cases of lung cancer, bronchitis, and heart diseases connected to smoking is larger. For example, about 30 percent of cancer deaths among men in the United States may be attributed to
cigarette smoking.
The cigarette smoker is exposed to a variety of hydrocarbons (including benzopyrene - an agent that causes cancer), nicotine, tobacco tar and resins, carbon monoxide, cadmium and nickel (two of the most deadly metals) and radioactive polonium-210 and lead-210. Minimum amounts of cadmium have been linked to hypertension and cardiovascular diseases, and nickel has been linked to lung cancer.
Why does smoking continue as a world habit? One factor is that the harmful results do not appear for about 20 years. As a result, the smoker can develop the "it will never happen to me" attitude. Smoking has also become a pleasant, automatic habit for many people. The psychological effects of nicotine are relatively mild and complex. A person who smokes while working, studying, or talking soon integrates this habit into his daily
activities. This psychological dependence is very difficult to break because it has been integrated into many different activities and is unconsciously stimulated by commercials on TV and magazine advertising.
Perhaps the major revelation in recent years is that smoking can no longer be considered as an activity that harms only the individual who smokes. Anyone near a smoker is involuntarily exposed to cadmium, nickel and many other dangerous chemicals.
By Fausto Fabio de Araujo