Whenever anyone lights up a cigarette and takes a deep drag of satisfaction, their lungs are filled with nicotine and tar-laden smoke that causes numerous physical problems that will become life-threatening, sooner or later. The nicotine is absorbed into the blood and, in 8 seconds, hits the brain changing the way the brain works. A single drop of pure nicotine will kill a person.
This poisonous drug can be used as a crop pesticide. In some places in Florida, bags of shredded tobacco leaves can be purchased to spread on lawns to kill fleas.
While in the brain, nicotine attaches itself to brain cells (neurons) and causes the release of large amounts of dopamine, which stimulates the brain’s pleasure and reward cycle. This cycle, called the limbic system, is involved in appetite, learning, memory and feelings of pleasure. While non-smokers can normally feel pleasure from good food, family, friends, activities, and so forth, nicotine floods the smoker’s brain with dopamine, causing feelings of intense pleasure. Therein lies the attraction and the deep emotional hook.
Nicotine raises the heart rate and respiration (breathing) rate, and causes more glucose, or blood sugar, to be released into the blood.
Tobacco can be used in various ways. It can be smoked as cigarettes, cigars, in pipes, chewed, dipped or sniffed, if powdered…creative ways to get cancers of the lip, lung, throat, mouth, esophagus, pancreas, larynx (voice box), cervix, bladder and kidney. Remember that as you are slowly killing yourself, you are flooding your brain with the pleasurable dopamine.
Other major benefits of nicotine use:
- Coronary heart disease…smokers 2-4 times more likely to develop this life-threatening disease than non-smokers
- Stroke…double the risk than non-smokers
- Peripheral Vascular Disease…10 times the risk of narrowing of the arteries
- Reproductive Effects…heightened risk of infertility, premature birth, stillbirth, low birth weight and SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome)
- Bone density…smoking women increase their risk of hip fracture
Peripheral damage of secondhand smoke: (a mixture of the smoke exhaled by smokers and that emitted by the burning end of cigarettes, cigars, pipes, etc):
- Sharing known carcinogens (formaldehyde, cyanide, carbon monoxide, ammonia, nicotine) with your family, co-workers and neighbors
- Increased risk of heart disease, lung cancer, respiratory problems (phlegm, coughing, reduced lung function)
- Higher risk for your children of SIDS, respiratory infections, asthma and ear problems
Secondhand smoke provides numerous ways to slowly kill yourself and
everyone around you…smoking in a car, with your family or friends in there
with you, lets you slowly kill them also.
As noted above, the nicotine hits the smoker’s brain in 8 seconds. In 40 minutes, the effects of nicotine are gone, urging the smoker to light up another. This repeated cycle of filling the brain with dopamine, eventually changes the brain and it tries to adjust to the dopamine overload.
This adjustment involves reducing the number of some receptors in the brain, causing the smoker to need more nicotine to create normal levels of dopamine in their brain. (FYI: Heroin and cocaine cause the same changes in the user’s brain) At this point, the brain has been trained, by the smoker, to crave tobacco.
That tobacco craving is pulling more than 4,000 chemicals into the smoker’s lungs with every puff, the most dangerous being tar and carbon monoxide, besides nicotine. Tar causes lung cancer, emphysema and bronchial disease. Carbon monoxide causes heart disease.
- Your smoking children will experience: a dulled sense of taste and smell (goodbye to normal enjoyments like meals, ice cream, etc)
- Reduced stamina (goodbye to sports)
- Premature aging of skin and discolored teeth (reduced good looks)
Because nicotine damages blood vessels to the brain and blocks air to the lungs, your children are more likely to have panic attacks, anxiety disorders, and depression.
Another mythical option:
“Bidis,” “Biris” or “Beedies” have come to the US originally from India where they are hand-rolled. They are popular with teens because they are flavored, colorfully packaged and cost less than American cigarettes.. A popular teen myth is that these imports are not as harmful as regular cigarettes. Actually, they contain much more nicotine than cigarettes and cause major damage to the smoker’s lungs. One beedi produces three times more carbon monoxide and nicotine, and five times more tar than a regular cigarette.
Teens are attracted to them because they are cool-looking, are available in many fruity flavors (such as vanilla, strawberry, chocolate, and mango) and do not resemble what their parents smoke. They are usually found in Indian food markets, but have been seen in convenience stores and gas stations across the United States, touted as new, cool, safe, and natural.
Smoking bidis has been independently proven to cause:
- Cancer of the tongue
- Cancer of the gums
- Cancer of the floor of the mouth
- Cancer of the larynx
- Cancer of the esophagus
- Lung cancer
- Other squamous cell oral cancers
- High blood pressure
- Coronary heart disease
Children are extremely vulnerable to chemicals in their blood, organs and bones. This exposure to sudden additions of tars, carbon monoxide, nicotine, etc, to their developing minds and bodies interferes with their thinking processes. In addition, it forces closure of the growth plates in the long bones–stopping them from ever reaching their full height.
Children and teens feel invulnerable and, while trying to fit in or look cool to their friends, can jump on a long slide into disease and eventual early death. Start talking to your kids early in their life! You are their only protection in a world filled with deadly enticements!
You have the right to give this report away freely. You may use it as a bonus item on your website, email it to your list and distribute it as you wish, as long as you do not sell it, claim authorship or change it in any way, including the author’s resource box below.
Pat Graham is the author of the eBook: “Child Drug Addicts – Save Them While You Can”
Get a copy at www.ChildDrugAddicts.com …plus free articles and more information.
© 2011 by Pat Graham – All Rights Reserved
To download a pdf copy of this article please CLICK HERE.
