Essay on Effects of Smoking

Submitted By jamiesherman1980
Words: 502
Pages: 3

Jamie S.

The Life­Threatening Risks Of Smoking

Studies and research show that cigarettes are detrimental to the health, and affect the lives of people. Each year about 443,000 people die in the United States die from illnesses related to tobacco use, according to the American Cancer Society. Smokers who smoke and have been smoking for a number of years are more at risk for health problems associated with smoking than those who choose not to smoke. Heart Attacks, lung cancer, and throat cancer, are a few of many illness that are caused from smoking tobacco. Tobacco companies have come up with many clever ways to market the use of tobacco, with a variety of brands, like Kool’s, Camels,
Salems, and Marlboro lights, all in packaging appealing to the eye. Though different, they all have the same damaging effects on the person smoking and the people around them. Cigarettes are harmful because they are made from tobacco and nicotine. Nicotine is a deadly poison that if injected into the bloodstream of a person, they would die within an hour of injection. Tobacco smoke contains tiny amounts of nicotine. Many people may think that it is ok to smoke around other people at greater health risk like the elderly and young children, and sometime animals, but this to can be just as harmful because tobacco smoke also contains Carbon Monoxide, Arsenic,
Ammonia, Acetone, Hydrogen Cyanide, (gas chamber poison), Naphthalene (found in mothballs), Sulfur compounds, Lead, Volatile Alcohol, Formaldehyde, and butane (lighter fluid).

This is why second hand smoke is the number two cause of lung cancer, while smoking is number one. Second hand smoke causes diseases and premature death in children and adults who do not smoke (American Lung Association). Babies whose mothers smoke while pregnant or around smokers after being born are more at risk for SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome).