Why Do People Smoke?

Several findings have showed that smoking harms nearly every organ of the human body, causing a wide range of diseases. Despite the knowledge of the health consequences of cigarette smoking, still a tremendous number of people continue to smoke worldwide. Smoking is often described as been the leading avoidable cause of mortality and one of the most important modifiable causes of premature death.

Cigarette manufactures have been required to put warnings on all their packages of cigarettes to tell smokers that cigarette smoking is dangerous to health. But still people smoke. Why do they want to put something into their mouth and suck on it till addictive toxins go inside lungs and do damage? People who smoke claim that cigarettes really have a calming effect when we feel stressed. This is due to nicotine delivered from tobacco by smoking. The very rapid absorption of nicotine (nicotine takes just ten seconds to reach the brain once smoke entered the lungs) and the high blood pressure levels that result, promote rapid and strong behavioral reinforcement from smoking.

The advantages of smoking are immediate and true whereas the disadvantages are delayed and likely. The positive consequences of smoking include reduced irritability, induced relaxation, increased sense of control, sensory stimulation, and maintain group affiliation etc. Nicotine once enter the brain act as a tranquilizer thus makes the smoker experience relax though for few minutes but in fact smoking cause more stress internally. Thinking that smoking reduces stress and makes calm is really a great time waste says Mitchell.

There are many negative consequences. First cigarettes are legal drugs. Smoking is unnecessarily a waste of money. Cigarettes are the most addictive and destructive over-the-counter drug known to man. Cigarette smoking is equivocal to lung cancer. Researches have shown that depression is twice as common to people who smoke against those who do not smoke. Apart from nicotine, tobacco contains cyanide, nitrogen oxide, and carbon monoxide, all of which are harmful chemicals and are used as poison.