In 1585, Sir Walter Raleigh helped found the infamous settlement on Roanoke Island in Virginia. The native Indians introduced Raleigh and his men to a herbal remedy called 'uppowoc' which they began exporting to Europe as a potential source of revenue. Uppowoc soon became known by its Spanish name 'tobacco' and grew in popularity, not least due to its favour in the royal court of Queen Elizabeth 1st.
By 1605 King James introduced the first tobacco taxes and urged people to stop using the plant. He declared it “loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs”.
Smoking causes cancer, heart disease and chronic lung disease. It kills at least 5million people every year and is the single most preventable cause of early death in the world.
Smoking is the biggest avoidable risk factor for cancer. It causes nine out of ten cases of lung cancer, the most common cause of cancer death. Smoking is also a risk factor for cancer of the bladder, kidney, cervix, throat (pharynx and larynx), mouth, oesophagus (foodpipe), pancreas and stomach and for some types of leukaemia (cancer of the blood). Smoking causes a third of all cancer deaths and lung cancer alone kills one person every 15 minutes in the UK.
How does smoking cause cancer?
Cigarette smoke is packed full of roughly 4000 compounds, many of which are toxic and can cause damage to our cells. Some are carcinogenic (cancer-causing).
Tobacco is part of the nightshade family of plants, which also includes the potato and tomato both of which also contains nicotine! The radioactive isotopes and other chemicals like formaldehyde often reported to be in tobacco are in fact a result of the soil they are grown in and all plants and vegatables take these materials up. The food we eat also contain most of the other scary sounding chemicals often quoted as being in cigarettes in order to urge you into giving up.
The tobacco itself is not the major issue with smoking. It is the burning of tobacco and inhalation of the smoke that causes the problem.
The three main ingredients of cigarette smoke are:
* Nicotine (although commercial cigarettes also contain amonia to create 'crack nicotine')
* Carbon monoxide
* Tar
Nicotine is not carcinogenic. It doesn't cause cancer. But it is a highly addictive and very fast-acting drug. Once inhaled, nicotine reaches the brain in less than 15 seconds. Most smokers are addicted to nicotine and crave cigarettes to feed their addiction. This is the key ingredient that keeps people buying cigarettes and keeps the tobacco companies in business.
However nicotine alone is not the main reason people find it hard to stop smoking. Monoamine oxidase inhibitors are absent in pharmaceutical nicotine replacement therapies and this is why people using them still go through withdrawl and craving. It may also go some way to explain why the long term success rate of NRT is only 4%
Carbon monoxide is a tasteless, odourless poisonous gas and a product of combustion. There is none in the tobacco itself. It is taken up by the bloodstream quickly and impairs the smoker's breathing. Inhaling too much carbon monoxide causes coma and death by asphyxiation.
Tar is a substance made up of various chemicals, many of which are known to cause cancer. Around 70 per cent of the tar in cigarettes is deposited in the smoker's lungs. Again, tar is a product of the combustion process. It effectively sticks the nasty chemicals into your lungs allowing them to cause damage over an extended period.
For many of us, quitting smoking is particularly difficult. It is not a case of being weak willed, different people have different factors affecting their addiction including the chemical addiction, habit, comfort etc. If you are finding it too hard to stop using tobacco, you should at least consider elimination of the combustion process which will reduce the associated health risks by at least 95-98%, even more in the case of some smokeless tobacco products.
