Amount Of Cigarette Smoke example essay topic

As part of my health and wellness plan for lecture I had to submit a w. h. i. p. contract where I stated contractually some type of lifestyle altering thing I was going to do during this quarter. I chose to submit a contract where I would cut back considerably if not completely my habit of cigarettes. Because of this I thought I would look into some of the statistics and affects smoking has in order to reinforce my conviction that it is time to stop smoking. This year alone "cigarettes will kill over 420,000 Americans" (American Heart Association), and many more will suffer from cancers, and circulatory and respiratory system diseases, and this number is on the rise. These horrible illnesses were known to originate from cigarettes for years, and recently the Food and Drug Administration declared nicotine, the main chemical additive in cigarettes, addictive. This explains why smokers continue to use cigarettes even though smokers are aware of, and constantly warned about health dangers in cigarettes.

Although smokers constitute the majority of people who suffer from cigarettes, they are not the only ones ailing from cigarette smoke. In addition to smokers, the "amount of second-hand smoke inhaled by the typical nonsmoker is equivalent to one cigarette smoked per day" (NHMRC). Even that amount of cigarette smoke can damage a person's heart. Some researchers have also concluded that "smoking by pregnant women causes the deaths of over 5,000 babies and 115,000 miscarriages" (NHMRC). The only way to terminate the suffering and loss of life brought upon by cigarettes is to, not smoke. For years cigarettes have been known to cause cancer, emphysema, and other horrible illnesses.

With all the other causes of preventable deaths such as, alcohol, illegal drugs, aids, suicide, transportation accidents, fires, and guns, cigarettes still account for more preventable deaths than those do combined. Thousands of smokers try to rid themselves of cigarettes but can't because of the physiological dependence they develop, chiefly imputable to its chemical additive nicotine. Although cigarettes do not offer as intense an effect as drugs like heroin and cocaine, "they rank higher in the level of dependence it creates in the user" (AHA). Although technology to remove nicotine from cigarettes was developed years ago cigarette manufacturers shun it.

Instead interestingly enough, they control with precision the amount of nicotine in their products. Cigarette smokers affect the health of tens of thousands of nonsmoking Americans a year. Of those who do not smoke 53,000 will die and countless others will suffer from cardiovascular diseases as reported by the American Heart Association. One-way cigarettes affect the body in both smokers and non-smokers is by reducing the body's ability to deliver oxygen to the heart because the carbon monoxide produced by the cigarettes competes with the oxygen for binding sites on red blood cells. Therefore, it increases the amount of lactate -- a salt derived from lactic acid -- in blood, making it more difficult to exercise, it activates blood platelets, the cells which cause cuts to form scabs, causing blood clots in the arteries, and it irritates tissue damage after a heart attack. American Heart Association, Inc., Cigarette Smoking and Cardiovascular Diseases. (c) 2002 Date visited: 8/7/03., National Health and Medical Research Council., The health effects of passive smoking - A Scientific Information Paper., November 1997., Copyright Commonwealth of Australia 1997., ISBN 0 642 27270 0.