Tobacco

December 17, 2013
Why Tobacco Is Bad
Cigarettes, cigars, and pipe tobacco are made from dried tobacco leaves, as well as ingredients added for flavor and to make smoking more pleasant. The smoke from these products is a complex mixture of chemicals produced by the burning of tobacco and its additives. The smoke is made up of more than 7,000 chemicals, including over 60 known to cause cancer (carcinogens). Some of these substances cause heart and lung diseases too, and all of them can be deadly. Tobacco smoke also contains tar and the poison gases carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide. The ingredient that produces the effect people are looking for is nicotine, an addictive drug and one of the harshest chemicals in tobacco smoke. Smoking accounts for at least 30% of all cancer deaths in the United States and 87% of lung cancer deaths. Smoking also causes cancers of the nasopharynx (upper throat), nasal cavity, paranasal sinuses, lip, larynx (voice box), mouth, pharynx (throat), esophagus (swallowing tube), and bladder. It also has been linked to the development of cancers of the pancreas, cervix, ovary, colorectum, kidney, stomach, and some types of leukemia. Cigarettes, cigars, pipes, and spit and other types of smokeless tobacco all cause cancer. There is no safe way to use tobacco. Not even dip. You don't smoke it. You don't swallow it. All you do is slosh it around your mouth and spit out the brown juices every few seconds. OK, so it actually is pretty disgusting. But so what? After all, it's called smokeless or chewing tobacco. That means you chew and spit it, not smoke it, so it can't be as bad as inhaling tobacco smoke into your lungs, right? Wrong . . . unfortunately, smokeless doesn't mean harmless. The fact is, chewing tobacco is dangerous, too. As many as 20% of high school boys and 2% of high school girls use smokeless tobacco, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Of the 12 to 14 million American users, one third are under age 21, and more than half of those developed the habit before they were 13. Peer pressure is just one of the reasons for starting the habit. Serious users often graduate from brands that deliver less nicotine to stronger ones. With each use, you need a little more of the drug to get the same feeling. According to the CDC, each year about 30,000 Americans learn they have mouth and throat cancers, and nearly 8,000 die of these diseases. Sadly, only about half of people with diagnosed mouth or throat cancer survive more than 5 years. The more immediate effects can disrupt your social life: bad breath and yellowish-brown stains on your teeth. You'll also get mouth sores (about 70% of spit tobacco users have them). But it gets a lot more serious than that. Consequences of chewing and spitting tobacco include:cracking and bleeding lips and gums, receding gums, which can eventually make your teeth fall out, increased heart rate, high blood pressure, and irregular heartbeats, all leading to a greater risk of heart attacks and brain damage (from a stroke), and cancer. Oral cancer means cancer of the mouth and can happen in the lips, the tongue, the floor of the mouth, the roof of the mouth, the cheeks, or gums. It's been medically proven that long-time use of chewing tobacco can lead to cancer. But cancer from chewing tobacco doesn't just occur in the mouth. Some of the cancer-causing agents in the tobacco can get into the lining of your stomach, your esophagus, and into your bladder. Tobacco is BAD!