It
’s Jan. 24, and 24 days ago many of you out there made the
decision to finally quit smoking. Well, for those of you who are
struggling, or haven’t even made the first step towards quitting, I
did a little research and maybe it will give you some
incentive.
It’s Jan. 24, and 24 days ago many of you out there made the decision to finally quit smoking. Well, for those of you who are struggling, or haven’t even made the first step towards quitting, I did a little research and maybe it will give you some incentive.
Unless they quit smoking, up to half of all smokers will die from it, most of them before they even celebrate their 70th birthday, and death will come only after years of suffering while living a reduced quality of life. The average smoker will die eight years earlier than a non-smoker. The good news is that life expectancy improves when the smoker quits, which means you still have the chance to live a long, healthy life.
Strong scientific evidence shows that smoking is related to, or even the cause of, more than two dozen diseases, but many of them can be reversed after quitting. Sometimes the benefits from quitting will begin in a matter of hours.
Smokers are more prone to develop chronic lung disease, chronic bronchitis and emphysema. Also, lung disease puts an additional strain on the heart and can cause heart failure. Some immediate effects to the circulatory system include an increase in blood pressure, narrowing of the blood vessels, an increase in heart rate and a decrease in stamina and energy. (If you think you’ll still be up for that four-mile jog after puffing on a cancer stick, you’re wrong.) Smoking leads to a decreased amount of oxygen in the blood, and decreased circulation, especially to the heart, arms, and legs.
Smokers are also at an extra risk of getting lung cancer, cancer of the mouth, throat, and voice box, cancer of the pancreas, and cancer of the kidney and urinary tract. Female smokers are also at an extra risk for cancer of the cervix.
Fifty years ago, people were unaware of the harmful effects of nicotine. They began a horrible, life-threatening habit; not knowing what it could really do to you. People perceived smoking as a sign of sophistication. In the forties, movie stars would strike “glamorous” poses, holding their six-inch gold cigarette holders and puffing away.
I’ll admit that the gorgeous and incredibly talented Audrey Hepburn did make smoking appear glamorous, but that is only because Audrey made everything look glamorous. The audience reacted by buying cigarettes so that they could be glamorous, too. The problem then was that people couldn’t see how those glamorous movie stars look now, (if they haven’t already died from some sort of disease caused by smoking) with their wrinkled, dried-up skin, reduced sense of smell and taste, and more than likely, coughing their blackened, crusty lungs up.
My grandma took up smoking at the age of twenty-one because she, too, was sucked into that false, sophisticated image of smoking. Forty-six and half years later, and more packs of cigarettes than either of us wanted to think about, she quit. Just like that.
No patches, no gum, nothing. She hasn’t smoked a cigarette in nearly ten years. I hope I’ve inherited her amazing, super-woman-like willpower.
“Within three days I regained a better sense of smell, taste, and of course I stopped smelling like smoke, too. After only three days, nicotine is flushed out of your system. You feel better and you breathe better,” said super-woman/ my grandmother.
Well, people growing up in the forties and fifties may have an excuse for starting to smoke. But teenagers have nothing but stupidity to blame. We’ve all heard about the terrible effects of smoking. Why smoke now?
Young people are the chief source of new consumers for the tobacco industry, which each year must replace the many consumers who finally quit smoking or those who die from smoking-related diseases.
Basically, those who started smoking fifty years ago are either wising up or dying off, so now the tobacco industry wants to target us as their next unsuspecting victims. But now we know better, so we’re not going to fall for it, right? Why should we sacrifice our lives, just so some multi-billion dollar company can make more money by selling this deadly product?
Nearly all beginning tobacco use occurs before high school graduation. Young people who begin to smoke at an earlier age are significantly more likely to develop long-term nicotine addiction than those who start later are.
More than 29 percent of high school students in the United States were smoking cigarettes in 2001. Nearly two-thirds of U.S. high school students have tried smoking. Cigarette smoking causes significant health problems to teens, including coughing, an over-production of phlegm (more than twice as much), more respiratory illnesses, decreased physical fitness and an increased risk of cardiovascular disease.Teenage smokers suffer from shortness of breath almost three times as often as teens who don’t smoke. The resting heart rates of young adult smokers are two to three beats per minute faster than nonsmokers. Teens who smoke are three times more likely than nonsmokers to use alcohol, eight times more likely to use marijuana and 22 times more likely to use cocaine.
Coughing, over-production of phlegm, decreased physical fitness. . . that sounds really attractive, doesn’t it? I hate to be the one to tell all you smoking guys out there, but the ladies aren’t real turned on by seeing you smoke your cute little pink lungs out. In fact, for me, I don’t care how gorgeous, funny, or intelligent you may be, or even if you drive a Mustang or Corvette. . . if you smoke, you’ve got no chances. Sorry.
And even if you don’t smoke, but your friend, spouse, or parent does, you’re still at a health risk. Second-hand smoke consists of more than 4,000 chemicals including carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, benzene, chromium, nickel, vinyl chloride and arsenic. Pretty gross, huh? If I were my lungs I wouldn’t want to breathe that stuff, either.
Parents who smoke increase the chances that their children will develop asthma by 200 to 400 percent. Also, tests show that within seconds of a pregnant woman breathing in second-hand tobacco smoke, it begins to affect her unborn baby.
Smoking needs to stop, the industry needs to be stopped, and the countless smoking-related deaths need to stop, so the best thing to do is to stand up against it and not support it in any way.
Chrissy Bryant is a senior at Live Oak High School. She alternates weekly with Melissa Ballard in writing Teen Perspective.
