The first experience of smoking is hardly worth remembering. It produces a sickening feeling. You cough, feel nauseated and may even vomit.
Tobacco smoke makes your breath, clothes, furniture and the air around you smell bad. But all of this hardly matters to smokers who are hooked on nicotine.
“Nicotine is actually a deadly poison. The amount in one cigarette, if all absorbed at once, could cause death by respiratory paralysis. It has been used as an insecticide. The body recognizes it as a poison and tries to cough or vomit out it the first few times but tolerance develops, the immediately unpleasant side effects subside, and the dose is increased,” according to Kurt Butler of the Quackery Action Council of Hawaii and Dr. Lynn Rayner of the John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii in “The Best Medicine.”
“The youngster who gags on his few puffs but persists is soon a full-fledged addict. It has been estimated that 70 percent of those who smoke more than one cigarette during adolescence will continue smoking for the next 40 years. Few if any other drugs can claim such potent addicting power. Even in wartime conditions with near starvations rations, addicts will often trade their little food for tobacco,” they added.
When Columbus learned about smoking from native Indians in America, he brought this practice back to Europe. In a short time, many nicotine addicts were born.
By 1614, there were about 7,000 tobacco shops in London alone and young noblemen squandered their wealth for a puff of tobacco. Land, cattle and precious stones were exchanged for this substance.
Seeing how it transformed his subjects into zombies, Sultan Murad IV tried to ban smoking in Constantinople in 1633. Offenders were hanged, beheaded and tortured, but that didn't stop tobacco addicts from getting their fix. To this day, efforts to stop smoking have not been successful in spite of the misery and suffering this habit brings.
"You are hooked, and hooked good, just as a junkie gets hooked on heroin. In fact, tobacco is the most habituating, addictive over-the-counter drug currently used by man. If you don't believe it, think back to the time you ran out of cigarettes and had to get dressed at 1 a.m. on a cold, rainy night to search for an all-night store or vending machine. If you didn't, you might have started looking for long butts in the ashtray. It's frightening what addiction will do to otherwise sane, responsible people, but cigarettes will do it every time,” said Lawrence A. Young, Linda G. Young, Marjorie M. Klein, Donald M. Klein, and Dorianne Beyer in “Recreational Drugs.”
“Next time you take a plane flight watch the action in the smoking section when the No Smoking sign goes off. You can practically hear 40 matches striking simultaneously! It may be pathetic, but remember you are dealing with addicts, nothing less," they said.
Tobacco advertisements have also increased the demand for smoking. On radio and television, smoking is portrayed as glamorous and an important part of outdoor activities. Smokers are often pictured as sophisticated individuals or jet setters. These marketing schemes effectively attract new smokers, particularly youngsters, without telling them of the many health risks they face. As Donald D. Schroeder said in “Smoking: You Can Quit Before It's Too Late”:
"Tobacco advertisers like to portray smokers as robust individuals who thrive in the great outdoors. But the real 'cigarette country' for too many smokers turns out to be the cancer ward of the local hospital." (Next: Anatomy of a cigarette.)
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