Smoking and Health Overview

by Angelina Petterson

Smoking and health concerns is the reason behind the growing list of countries introducing tobacco regulations. In the United States over 38 States have some form of tobacco control in some cases as smoking laws as a result of the dangers of smoking.

For many decades the health effects of smoking were never highlighted or given active consideration to the extent they deserved. Even the tobacco industry by the 1960s knew the effects of smoking and there was deliberate efforts to suppress this scientific information. This approach meant that millions of smokers suffered irreparable health damage and many died due to tobacco smoking.

Even after the mid-90s when the tobacco industry in America finally under duress gave away the secrets of cigarette ingredients and compounds, there were continued attempts to mislead the public by marketing supposedly less harmful cigarettes such as Malboro Light cigarettes.

Smoking health concerns are at the center of a barrage of tobacco lawsuits that spiked in year 2000 after the cigarette ingredients disclosure of the mid-90s. These intensified with widows of smokers and terminally ill smokers themselves claiming total amounts running into billions of American dollars against the tobacco companies. The majority of people who died from smoking diseases lost their lives from smoking cancers especially lung cancer.

Today it's is no secret nor is it disputed that smoking is behind lung cancer and other related cancers. It is also responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths due to heart attacks, strokes and other cardiovascular diseases.

Smoking while pregnant has since been demonstrated to result in deformed or low weight babies who might develop learning deficiencies later in life apart from increased risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) or crib death.

Second hand smoke or passive smoke which is tobacco smoke inhaled by innocent by-standers from smoke emitted by smoldering cigarettes and that exhaled by smokers is also a cause for great concern. It is mostly because of passive smoke that smoking in public places has been banned in many places including airports and public buildings.

Smoking and health worries to do with third hand smoke are also growing. This is smoke that attaches itself to hair, carpets, curtains in homes and surfaces where children play. Not only do children who live with smoking parents or siblings suffer from second hand smoke; they are exposed to a great deal of third hand smoke which remains to settle long after the smoker is gone. Children and pets in particular are also exposed to nicotine poisoning from cigarette butts when leaving with careless parents.

Teenage tobacco use is rife world wide with an estimated over 3000 new kids starting to smoke daily in schools and communities. Smoking health risks are even higher in young people because of their biological mark-up which is still in development.

As awareness on smoking dangers is increasing many teenage smokers are shifting to chewing tobacco or tobacco waterpipe smoking under the misconception that this smoking alternatives are healthy or at least less harmful.

The cost of smoking on the national health bill is staggering. The UK spends up to 1.6 Billion Pounds annually on smoking and health care cost. This would also include treating sick smokers, stop smoking products, quit smoking programs and general campaigns to teach people how to give up smoking in addition to highlighting the dangers of smoking.

Due to ever increasing tobacco taxes the over the counter cost of buying cigarettes has been increasing yearly. According to the World health Organisation (WHO) in China 60% of males smoke. Of this a huge percentage is said to spend 60% of income on cigarettes. The impact on the social matrix such as family needs and so on is not difficult to imagine.

Amazingly, put together smokers have a lower life-time health bill than non-smokers because smoking reduces the life span of a smoker sharply. This is the apparent cost of stopping smoking. In fact they say from every cigarette smoked some good 3 months of an individual's life are taken away from the total length of life.

Smoking and health should be a constant concern for those who still smoke and those considering starting to smoke. Even though millions quit every year millions more are failing to do so because quitting smoking is hard. This is due to an entrenched nicotine dependency that takes hold of a smoking individual overtime. A good 70% of people who smoke wish they could stop smoking but they just can't seem to do it. Even when they try they suffer repeated smoking relapse set-backs.

At the turn of the new decade 2010 going forward, it would appear that the negative smoking health impact will grow in the developing countries where the rules are relaxed and smoking information is virtually scarce. Western tobacco companies are well aware of these loop-holes and have made their presence stronger in these undiscerning markets such as China, India, rest of Asia and many parts of Africa.

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