Smoking tobacco causes a wide spectrum of health problems and affects many of the major organs in the body. The practice can not only affect the smoker, but can present an environmental hazard for nonsmokers. Children in particular are vulnerable, suffering from childhood bronchitis and asthma as a result of exposure to second-hand smoke, but other adults can suffer serious ill effects as well.
Content of Tobacco Smoke
Smoke from tobacco and the paper in which it is wrapped contains over 4,000 chemicals, according to the National Cancer Institute. It contains arsenic, toxic metals, chemicals used on gasoline and the manufacture of plastics, and at least one radioactive element--polonium 210. So far, more than 250 of these chemicals have been identified as harmful. It is possible that more of these chemicals will be found to be harmful by future research.
Effect on Major Organs
Smoking causes lung cancer, coronary heart disease, emphysema, chronic bronchitis, vascular disease and chronic airway obstruction. It also causes bladder, esophagus, mouth, larynx and throat cancer. In 2004 the U.S. Surgeon General's Report found previously unknown links between smoking and pneumonia, leukemia, cataracts, periodontitis, cervical cancer, kidney cancer, pancreatic cancer and stomach cancer. This is only a partial list of the diseases that smoking causes or worsens.
Risk Magnitude
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that smoking is responsible for 90 percent of all lung cancer deaths in American men, and 80 percent in American women. Smoking is also responsible for 90 percent of all deaths from chronic obstructive lung disease. If you smoke, you are two to four times as likely to develop coronary heart disease, two to four times as likely to have a stroke and 12 to 13 times as likely to develop chronic obstructive lung disease. You are also 13 to 23 times as likely to develop lung cancer, depending on whether you are a man or a woman, respectively.
Secondhand Smoking
Secondhand smoke consists of smoke expelled from burning tobacco or exhaled by a smoker, according to the National Cancer Institute. Secondhand smoke puts non-smokers at risk when they inhale it, and secondhand smokers are susceptible to all of the diseases that smokers face, although to a lesser degree. Living with a smoker who regularly smokes indoors will increase your risk of developing lung cancer by 20 to 30 percent, and your risk of developing heart disease by 25 to 30 percent.
Dissent
Although a broad consensus has developed concerning the health dangers of smoking, there is still some debate over the precise extent of the dangers of secondhand smoking. Legislation banning smoking in public places in the U.S. is based partly on the conclusion of the U.S. Surgeon General that there is no safe level of secondhand smoking. Dr. Michael Siegel, an advocate of bans on workplace smoking, however, says that exposure to secondhand smoke for half an hour is completely reversible. He accuses some advocates of unrealistic extremism.
References
- Centers for Disease Control: Health Effects of Cigarette Smoking
- American Lung Association: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Fact Sheet
- U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: New Surgeon General's Report Expands List of Diseases Caused by Smoking
- National Cancer Institute: Secondhand Smoke: Questions and Answers
- ABC News: Myth: Secondhand Smoke is a Killer
