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Smoking itself is the practice of inhaling smoke from the burning of tobacco in a pipe, cigar, or most commonly, in a cigarette. The relaxation smokers feel is because tobacco contains nicotine, a very addictive Alkaloid. However, a number of diseases are directly linked to smoking and in the United States alone, tobacco use kills about 450,000 smokers each year. Recent studies also indicate that approximately 60,000 nonsmokers die each year from diseases directly related to the passive inhalation of secondhand smoke.
According to the American Lung Association, over 85% of smokers say that cigarettes are addictive due to nicotine. Besides nicotine, cigarette smoke consists of more than 4,000 chemical compounds, including cardiac poisons, cancer causing agents, and industrial solvents, which cause heart disease, strokes, pulmonary and respiratory diseases, cancer, and birth defects. Lung cancer and heart disease, once considered primarily a men's disease, increased sharply in women as more began smoking. Inhaling the hot toxic fumes from burning Tobacco burns the linings of the air passages and reduces the smoker's ability to fight off disease. The large particles in smoke from a corrosive tar containing many poisonous chemicals. This tar collects in the smoker's lungs, exposing the smoker to these dangerous chemicals. A pregnant woman who smokes passes the toxic chemicals she takes into the developing fetus, where the chemicals can cause a spontaneous abortion or can cause the baby to have lower birth weight or birth defects.
Chemicals in burning tobacco at the end of a cigarette, or cigar also pollute the air as secondhand smoke. Among other chemicals, secondhand smoke contains formaldehyde, arsenic, radioactive compounds, benzene, and carbon monoxide. A 1990 Surgeon General's report concluded that passive inhalation of smoke by nonsmokers was extremely harmful. A 1992 study by the U.S. Environmental Agency (EPA) confirmed the report, concluding that secondhand smoke, defined as smoke inhaled by a nonsmoker residing with a smoker, was a proven human carcinogen that caused 3,000-lung cancer death a year in nonsmokers.
The EPA Report also blamed secondhand smoke for up to 30,000 cases of asthma in children, 20 percent of annual asthma attacks in children, and 15,000 hospitalizations of children each year due to respiratory problems. In 1992, the American Heart Association reported that secondhand smoke caused heart disease and aggravated pre-existing heart disease. Secondhand smoke kills about 40,000 people a year through heart disease, and it has been linked to cervical cancer, brain tumor, birth defects, and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
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