Whether you have smoked for 10 days or 10 years, smoking is bad for you. There are countless short-and long-term effects of smoking. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, cigarette smoking harms nearly every organ in the body including the brain, mouth, eyes, lungs, heart, stomach, bones, pancreas, kidneys, and bladder.
Addiction
There is no reason to start smoking; however, once you start, it is hard to stop. Cigarettes contain nicotine, which is a highly addictive chemical. The American Cancer Society defines addiction as physical and psychological dependence on a substance. It is marked by the repeated, compulsive seeking or use of a substance despite its harmful effects and unwanted consequences. The ways in which people become addicted to nicotine are very similar to the ways people become addicted to cocaine and heroine. Like any addictive drugs, the mind becomes so used to nicotine that it must have it to feel normal. The American Cancer Society also reports that out of 70 percent of smokers who say they want to quit, 40 percent try to quit, but only 4 to 7 percent succeed without help each year.
Harmful Substances
When you smoke, you are, in a sense, poisoning your body. Cigarette smoke contains tar, which is a mixture of over 4,000 chemicals, many of them known to be cancer-causing. When tar settles, it forms a sticky brown residue that coats a smoker's teeth, fingers and lungs. You may be surprised to see some of the chemicals in cigarettes listed by Cancer Research UK: cyanide--used as an industrial pesticide; benzene--an industrial solvent; formaldehyde--used in mortuaries and paint manufacturing; arsenic--used in wood preservatives; acrolein--formerly used in chemical weapons, acetylene--used as fuel in wielding torches; cadmium--used in batteries; and ammonia--used to make fertilizers and explosives. Cigarettes also contain the poisonous gases carbon monoxide, found in car exhausts, and nitrogen oxide, a major component of smog.
Short-Term Effects
As a person smokes a cigarette, immediate physical responses occur as the chemicals enter the body. According to Illinois Department of Public Health, the short-term effects of smoking include nicotine addiction, respiratory problems, coronary artery disease, dental problems, nervousness, depression and a tendency toward health-damaging behavior. Carbon monoxide decreases the amount of oxygen the blood is capable of carrying, creating an imbalance in the demand for oxygen by the cells and the amount of oxygen that is able to be supplied. The most obvious physical effects involve bad breath, wrinkled skin and stained fingernails.
Long-Term Effects
Many of the consequences of smoking occur gradually. Over time, smoking increases the risk of developing problems such as heart disease, stroke, hemorrhage, emphysema, osteoporosis and many different types of cancer--including lung, throat, bladder, stomach, liver, cervix, kidney, larynx and esophagus caner. The Department of Public Health claims that smoking greatly increases a woman's chances of infertility, complications during pregnancy and early onset of menopause. Smoking has also been linked to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and mental retardation in babies of women who smoke. Additionally, smoking increases a person's risk of infections like bronchitis and pneumonia. While the consequence of smoking may seem far-off, they should be taken seriously. The World Health Organization (WHO) states that tobacco use is responsible for more than 5 million deaths every year--more than HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined. If this trend continues, tobacco use could kill up to one billion people in total in the 21st century.
Second-Hand Smoke
Second-hand smoke, or environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), occurs when non-smokers breath other people's tobacco smoke. There is strong evidence that second-hand smoke has many negative effects on human health. The WHO states that second-hand smoke is responsible for 600,000 premature deaths per year. About 3,400 non-smoking adults die from lung cancer and about 46,000 die from heart disease as a result of breathing in second-hand smoke, claims the American Cancer Society. Children exposed to second-hand smoke are more likely to suffer from asthma, ear infections, pneumonia and bronchitis. These children exposed to tobacco smoke are also more likely to start smoking in the future.
Effects on the Economy
While the smoking industry is one of the most profitable businesses, raking in billions of dollars each year, the cost on the economy pays the price. The American Cancer Society reports that smoking causes more than $196 billion each year in health-related costs. This includes the cost of lost productivity caused by deaths from smoking. Additionally, medical costs between 2000 and 2004, related to smoking average over $100 billion each year. This means $2,247 in extra medical expenses for each adult smoker per year. Smoking also costs the United States economy almost $97 billion a year (between 2000 to 2004), due to death-related productivity losses from smoking among workers. The American Cancer Society states that for each pack of cigarettes sold in 2004, $5.50 was spent on medical care caused by smoking, and $5.32 lost in productivity, for a total cost to society of $10.82 per pack.
