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Smoking
The Substance
Nicotine is the major component of tobacco, and is usually consumed as dried tobacco leaves. Furthermore, cigarette smoke contains about 2000 additional chemicals, which are often summed up using the term major tar. Besides smoking (the most common form of consuming it) nicotine can also be taken in as snuff, chewing tobacco, chewing gum or nicotine sticking plaster.
The Effects of Nicotine
Nicotine increases alertness, slightly improves the mood and suppresses feelings of hunger. Since it decreases the tension of the muscles, it also conveys a feeling of relaxation.
Because of these reasons, nicotine is often consumed for diminishing anxiety, anger and aggressions, for relaxation, for calming nervousness, for reducing tiredness, for increasing concentration and for suppressing a feeling of hunger.
Who Smokes And Why?
- 30% of the grown-up population are smokers.
- ? After a decline in cigarette consumption, the consumption among young people is on the rise again since the beginning of the 90’s. At present in Austria, Switzerland and Germany, more than 40% of young people smoke either regularly or from time to time.
- Children of smoking parents tend to smoke more often themselves.
- Teenagers that do not feel well (e.g. troubles at home or at school), smoke more.
- Some just smoke to stay slim. But that 'therapy' has negative side-effects: You smell of smoke, get wrinkles earlier and get yellow teeth or fingers.
- By the way, increasingly, smoking already starts in primary school. Up 5% of ten-year-olds already smoke, because they believe it’s cool when older kids smoke or because friends get them to smoke.
Side-effects of Smoking
- Smoking may cause cancer, chronic bronchitis, heart attack and a narrowing of the arteries of the leg. In addition, it increases the risk of impotence and sterility.
- People who smoke take in 6 kg of coal-dust or 10 briquettes into their lungs within 20 years, and this takes a heavy toll on their condition, of course.
- Long-term smoking often leads to conditions of the respiratory tract like wheezing breath, pains in the chest and chronic bronchitis. Furthermore, smoking carries the risk of getting lung cancer, cancer of the oral cavity, the larynx, the oesophagus, the bladder and the pancreas.
- In Austria, approx. 12 000 people die because of the long-term consequences of smoking every year. So it really doesn’t pay off to smoke.
A Few More Facts:
- Fast effect - long-term addiction: You get used to the effects of nicotine very quickly. A small pleasure becomes a habit, and the cigarette during the break or at the bus stop or in a cafe 'belongs with it'. On top of psychological addiction, nicotine also gets you physically addicted very rapidly - just like some of the so-called 'hard drugs'. Nicotine belongs to the drugs with the highest potential for addiction. About half of smokers want to stop, but many do not achieve it.
- Light cigarettes contain less nicotine, but the same amount of the other ingredients as a normal cigarette. Therefore, the physical damage is the same or even more, as many smokers tend to smoke more cigarettes to inhale the same amount of nicotine.
- Older teenagers would sometimes like to quit smoking again, but as nicotine causes psychological and physiological addiction, many smokers don’t manage to stop. Nevertheless, it is worth trying, and by now there are many drugs which help in quitting. Stop smoking to bridge certain situations or to make uncertainty, loneliness or boredom more bearable.
- Second hand smoke is dangerous as well. Passive smoking increases the risk of bronchitis by 60% and the risk of lung cancer by 20%.
No Nicotine, if...
- ...you suffer from high blood pressure or diabetes, as the risk of a heart condition further increases.
- ...you suffer from a condition of the heart, the lungs or the circulation. Your condition will get worse.
- ...you are pregnant. Nicotine gets into the placenta and all body fluids, so this means the mother’s milk as well. Smoking during pregnancy therefore increases the risk of premature birth or miscarriage, reduces the oxygen and nutrient supply and harms the development of the embryo.
The Legal Situation
In Austria, nicotine and cigarettes come under the laws protecting young people of the respective province in which you currently stay. In Styria, buying and smoking cigarettes is allowed over the age of 16.
Article by Jasmin Hancer, Gymnasium Laaerbergstraße, Vienna, Austria
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