Reasons to Quit Smoking Cigarettes - Essay Example

Reasons to Quit Smoking Cigarettes Smoking cigarettes just as the name suggests refers to the process of burning the leaves of dried and processed tobacco leaves and breathing the resultant smoke. As such, smoking cigarettes is a common way administering recreational drugs into the body. Smoking is a way of introducing active substances into the lungs thus into the body tissues. Cigarette, for example, contains active alkaloid nicotine, which enters the lungs through the smoke thereby reaching the body tissues. Smoking cigarettes is a vice that introduces harmful substances into the body. Thousands of people die day globally on a daily basis because of the hazardous effects of smoking a feature that validates that smoking is a harmful act. Smoking poses a number of health risks to both the smoker and non-smokers around those who smoke. Smoking is, therefore, an unsafe practice and a leading cause of preventable deaths as the discussion below portrays. Smoking is a form of introducing foreign participles into the body. Introducing particles in such sensitive organs of the body as the lungs are a dangerous process given the difficulty in cleaning and reversing the effects of such particles. Smoking cigarettes contributes to the development of more than fifty health complications in the body. Some of such conditions are always fatal while others are irreversible and long-term damages in some of the most vital internal and external organs. Medical researchers have for example proven that Smoking increases the chances of lung cancer by more than 90%. The introduction of the foreign particles is likely to enhance the growth of cancerous cells. Besides causing lung cancer, doctors attribute smoking to the development of cancer in several other body parts including the lips, throat, kidney, bladder, pancreas and stomach among others (Crawford 71). Numerous people have given various reasons for justifying smoking especially among young people. Among such reasons is the claim that smoking enhances acceptance among peers. Some people have given a number of medical excuses explaining that smoking helps relieve stress. Additional medical reasons include an explanation that smoking enhances concentration thereby improving success in tasks that requires immense concentration. Others further claim that smoking is an effective way of achieving weight loss. The validity of the above claims remains debatable. Peer pressure is among the leading factor that drives young people into smoking. If one keeps a company that smokes, then they are likely to begin smoking too. As explained earlier, smoking introduces foreign particles into the body. As such, the body may react differently to such particles with some people registering immense weight loss. This tends to validate the claim that smoking is a surest way of achieving weight loss. Despite the various reasons proposed by those who support smoking the truth is that smoking poses immense danger to both the smoker and non-smokers. Medical researches show that smokers are more likely to harm non-smokers around them than they harm themselves. Second-hand smoke just as the name suggests refers to the smoke that a smoker breathes out. Such smoke has both the particles in cigarettes coupled with germs from the respiratory tract of the smoker. As such, it poses an immense danger to those who breathe it. Second-hand smokers are at a similar risk to acquire the various health complications including the various categories of cancers. This creates a uniquely dangerous situation since a smoker can cause the death of his or her family members, colleagues and friends. With the increasing information on such information, most people tend to avoid smokers a feature that unlike previously speculated that smoking makes one cool and win them company, results in the loneliness of smokers. Smoking during pregnancy is dangerous both to the mother and to the baby. Smoking during pregnancy affects the health of the unborn baby thereby increasing the risks of stillbirths, low weight babies, premature births and miscarriages. Pregnancy is a process that refers to the development of a baby inside its mother’s womb. At such stages, the baby shares a blood stream with its mothers. This implies that they take in any harmful substance in their mothers’ bloodstream. Nicotine is among such substances that pregnant mothers pass to their babies thereby causing the above risks to the life of the baby. The discussion above shows that a pregnant mother can easily kill her unborn child or make them acquires some irreversible and long-term medical complications that will not only prove costly to manage but also affect the quality of a child’s life. Besides the medical effects of smoking cigarettes, the vice has a number of both social and economic effects. Smoking is an addictive process that worsens as one continues to smoke. The cumulative cost of smoking is high given the fact that addicts smoke all the time. The cost of cigarettes is increasing as the government increases taxes on the products. Other paraphernalia such as cigarette lighters add to the cost of smoking. The social effects of smoking, on the other hand, include the odor of smoke that often lingers on both the body and clothes of the smokers. Nonsmoking peers are also likely to avoid the companies of smokers. Additionally, smokers have often caused such tragic accidents as forest fires among other types of fires even at home. In retrospect, smoking is a vice that has no place in the modern society. The cost of living continues to rise with the cost of health care being a concern to most families. Smoking is, therefore, likely to contribute to the financial strain of families in the process of sustaining the vice and dealing with its numerous health and social effects. Furthermore, awareness of the negative effects of smoking is rising especially among the youth. The success of such initiatives contributes to the development of a large population of nonsmokers. This leaves smokers vulnerable and without any social life. Smoking is not cool anymore and smokers stand the risk of seclusion from the society. The fact that smokers risk the lives of nonsmokers make them poor parents who do not only strain their families finances but also causes direct risks to the health of their families, colleagues and peers. Work cited Crawford, Muriel L. Smoking: 201 Reasons to Quit. Walnut Creek, Calif: Dillon & Parker Pub, 2009. Print. Read More