Smoking: History, Effects and Reasons for Smoking - Report Example

• Smoking: History, Effects and Reasons for Smoking
• Introduction

Evidently, smoking tobacco is one of the controversial aspects in the society in that many people rely on tobacco related businesses for their survival while at the same time it leads to health issues to the passive and active smokers (Sander, 83). The history of tobacco dates back to 6000 BC when it is believed that the growing of tobacco started, in the Central American region around. Since then the spread of the habit of smoking of tobacco has increased from one region to another. Over years, scientists and scholars have argued over the motivating factors that make individuals, young and old, to indulge into smoking tobacco. As this paper points out, some of the common reasons include peer pressure, social reared, Risk-taking Behavior, parental influence, among other reason.

However, the controversial issue has been on the effects tobacco smoking has at the economic, social, individual, and environmental levels. Based on different studies, therefore, have been numerous findings that have shown that smoking tobacco has tremendous effects on the health of an active smoker as well as on the passive smoker. For example, the toxins in tobacco substances are accumulated along the respiratory systems thus blocking the free flow of blood, leading to respiratory and cardiovascular complications (Elisa Sebba Tosta de Souza et al, 768). The following paper seeks to discuss the history of tobacco smoking, reasons for smoking, as well as demonstrating its health, economic, societal, and environmental impacts. However, in reference to the effects of tobacco smoking, this paper seeks to posit that despite the economic benefits that countries gain from taxes, tobacco smoking is harmful to people’s health both the active and passive smokers. At the same time, the paper emphasizes that the negative economic, societal, health and environmental impacts outweigh any economic benefits gained from tax income.

Brief History of Smoking

Historically, it is believed that tobacco growing began in the Central American region around 6000 BC (Eysenck). Admittedly, it must be realized that the rise of tobacco has been drastic in a very short period, and the certain historical characters, actions, and course of events have made cigarette smoking to be playing such a significant role in many people’s lives today (Skirty, 71) . It is believed that it until around 1000 BC, 5,000 years later that Mayan civilization started chewing and smoking the leaves of the tobacco plant including mixing the leaves with plants and herbs to administer the same mixture to the wounds of those who would be sick. As the Mayans populated and dispersed to different areas such as South America and North America, they were taking with them the precious tobacco plants and leaves. Many years later during the time of some of the greatest explorers of the world, tobacco was discovered and then brought back to the new world (Reid, 59). Evidently, it is believed that Columbus was the first European to find tobacco leaves although he never smokes them. Shortly after, another explorer, Rodrigo de Jerez, who was a friend to Columbus, landed in Cuba and observed some of the inhabitants were smoking the tobacco, leaves (Skirty, 51). Unlike Columbus, Rodrigo de Jerez proceeded to partake in the act of smoking himself. Rodrigo de Jerez, laden with heaps of tobacco went to back to Spain where he puzzled his compatriots when he smoked in front of them. Previously, his compatriots had never seen smoke coming from a person’s mouth and nose. In this respect, it was believed that he was possessed by the devil thus imprisoning him for several years. In his years in the prison, smoking became a popular practice between the Spanish.

In the 1530s, a number of Europeans noted the potential of making money through tobacco business when they decided to cash in make their wealth out of the cultivation of this popular plant (Skirty, 75).

Consequently, the Europeans started to colonize the Caribbean and went ahead to establish tobacco growing areas, where they exported tobacco to Europe. It is believed that the first man to ensure that a consignment of tobacco was brought into the UK in 1573 was Sir Francis Drake. Later on, Sir Walter Raleigh would later go ahead to make tobacco smoking more popular by introducing it the court of Queen Elizabeth I. In the year 1586, Sir Walter Raleigh embarked on a trip to the Americas where he met Ralph Lane. At this time, Ralph Lane was the Governor of Virginia. Lane decided to introduce Raleigh to the pleasures of smoking a clay pipe, which was popular there in that era. After one year, a good number of colonists who had previously left to settle in Virginia from England decided to return the homeland where introduced the style of smoking clay pipes to the English society (Hayashi, 65). Consequently, many English families were traveling to Virginia to settle and try to have a wealthy living based on the growing of tobacco in large-scale plantations. In many other European countries, pipe smoking was becoming extremely popular such as in France and Spain.

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the importation of tobacco into the UK had already taken momentum with an estimated amount of 25,000 pounds being shipped from the Americas. Notably, by the end of the century, this figure had already increased up to close to 38 million pounds. Consequently, the competitive tobacco marketing and production on a large scale began to get underway (Skirty, 65). Specifically, in London, piped smoking as well as snuff had become popular during the 17th Century. However, smoking cigars would become the trend, but it was not until the mid-1800 that the cigarette, as we know was manufactured. In this way, cigarette-making machines would be introduced, where by this time; it was producing only two hundred cigarettes per minute. The introduction of cigars and the machine for producing the made the industry expand. Consequently, since cigarettes were being produced massively, they became more affordable and available for quite a wider range of consumers. At the beginning, soldiers who were fighting in the wars were the one mainly hooked on the act of smoking. The objective of giving cigarettes to soldiers was to boost their morale after long periods of inactivity.

At the begging of the Second World War, Roosevelt, American president, decided to make tobacco a protected crop (Skirty, 71). Consequently, there were shortages of tobacco in England and America as packets and packets of cigarettes were being sent to the soldiers fighting in the war. The use of cigarettes during the wars made smoking more and more attractive. The trend would be strengthened further after the soldiers went back to their respective homes and introduced the act of smoking to their families and friends. In addition, it would be important to point out that tobacco was firstly considered dangerous to the health of human beings in 1602 after an anonymous English author published an essay that was titled “Worke of Chimney Sweepers (sic).” In this article, the author noted that soot caused most of the illnesses that were being seen in chimney sweepers. At the same time, the article author observed that tobacco might have similar effects on the human beings. Historically, this considered one of the earliest revelations pointing the dangerous side of the tobacco. In 1795, Samuel Thomas von Soemmering of Maine (Germany) indicated that he had observed increases rates of lip cancer for most of the pipe smokers (Skirty, 66). In 1798 Benjamin Rush, who was the US physician, also wrote on the medical dangers of tobacco. Further, in the 1920s the first medical report that was linking smoking to lung cancer was released. However, most of the newspaper editors did not report this information to the public since they feared to taint the image of the companies that were paying a lot of money in the media for advertisements. The impact of tobacco on the health would become more apparent in the 1950s and 1960s after several medical reports were released and published regarding the same.

In these days, the research on the effects of smoking tobacco was in its infancy stages. Notably, it was not until 1950’s that the first concrete signals on the effects of smoking were given by the researchers (Skirty, 55). In this alarm, the researchers linked smoking with lung cancer but more studies were being done at the same time. The report could, however, be blemished by companies and multi-million pound industries since they feared losing reputation from the public.

In 1964, the US Surgeon General noted that cigarette smoking was confirmed to be the cause of lung cancer. The report by the surgeon led to the banning of tobacco advertising from radio and television. Consequently, tobacco firms were required to print health warnings on the packets of different cigarette brands.

In 1973, the American government put in place the first restrictions on smoking in public. In this case, all airlines firms were required to set aside separate areas for smoking from the non-smoking areas on their respective planes (Hayashi, 57). However, smoking was prohibited in 1987 on all flights of less than two hours duration. The US Surgeon General, in 1988, carried out extensive research on nicotine, which concluded that nicotine was an addictive drug. Further, two years later after this discovery, more restrictions would be imposed on smoking in public modes of transport. Vermont State became the first region in the USA, to ban all smoking in indoor places.

The controversy over the addictive nature of nicotine would rise more debated such as in 1994 where the tobacco bosses swore in Congress that nicotine was not addictive and that they were not in any way controlling the nicotine present in cigarettes (Skirty, 43). However, in three years’ time, they would be required to come back to the Congress in order to testify that nicotine was indeed addictive and that smoking was responsible for causing a bigger portion of cancer cases. Consequently, many more companies would be prosecuted by different people that wanted compensation for the loss of their loved ones including relatives or their own health due to the cigar smoking (Richardson, 84). In most of the cases, claimants would become more successful by winning in court proceedings. Therefore, as time went on, many tobacco companies were required to pay out hugged amounts of money to compensate the victims due to health damages and deaths.

The above events and the latest criticisms about effects of smoking on the health of peopled have made advertising of cigarette brands be banned in different countries (Skirty, 53). The objective is to try to avoid more and more deaths or ill health after people have taken up the habit of smoking. At the same time, more smoking restrictions have been imposed in many places and regions across the world, indoor public areas as well as workplaces including Ireland, England, Norway, California, Spain, and Florida.

Causes of the Growth and Decline of Smoking in Traditional Markets

The growth and prevalence of cigarette smoking continued to increase tremendously during the twentieth century due to a number of factors. Firstly, the development of new forms tobacco promotion such as advertisement, which made many people, becomes induced into cigarettes smoking. At the same timed, the public was less aware of the health effects that were being caused by cigarettes smoking. In this way, majority are simply smoking without knowing the danger of the act of smoking on their health. Further, the tobacco companies were influential enough to dictate the policies that would be passed by the regulators (Elisa Sebba Tosta de Souza et al, 768). The governments as well as key stakeholders would fear the result of collapsing the tobacco industry since a lot of income was coming from the players. On the other hand, as indicated above, smoking of cigarette grew tremendously from one region of the world to the next due to the world wars, where soldiers would be allowed to smoke in order to boost their morale. Notably, cigarettes to soldiers during wars were being distributed to them free.

However, smoking of cigarette would become less popular at the end of the twentieth century due to the increase health awareness in relation to the effects of smoking for both passive and active smokers (Stead LF, 47). Consequently, governments would pass r-smoking restrictions in order to protect those who were not smoking from health implications. In addition, people became more aware of the misinformation from the tobacco companies. Understandably, the public was able to realize that it was being misled by the industry players in order to continue buying cigarettes. In this way, the companies were intending to manipulate policy and give the wrong impression regaining the health effects of smoking and thus meet their short-term self-interests. As described above, the public awareness would later lead to lawsuits against tobacco companies, which harmed the growth of the industry.

The Current Global Smoking Trends

Evidently, the smoking prevalence has declined in most of the traditional markets of Western Europe and North America. This trend is attributed to the increased awareness and knowledge about the effects of smoking on human health, which has led to the decreased number of smoker’s .at the same time, the issue of health that was witnessed in the end of the twentieth century, also affected the industry in these markets.

Currently, most of the industry players and big multinational companies have concentrated their promotional efforts on developing and less developed nations as well as emerging markets such as In Asia, Africa, Middle East, Latin America and the former Soviet Union (Elisa Sebba Tosta de Souza et al, 768). Notably, there are different reasons that have led to this shift of promoting cigarettes brands. Firstly, the decline in the businesses in developed nations has made these multinational companies to look for new markets for expansion. Secondly, most of the population in less developed and more so developing nations are not well informed about the health effects of taking tobacco, which makes them utilize such ignorance. Thirdly, there are weak policies in these countries, making industry players take advantage of establishing markets. At the same time, it should be noted that majority of developing countries are looking for investors to establish industries in their nations. In this way, they are less likely to block multinational companies who are taking billions of dollars in such poor countries from investing.

On another angle, the demographic is not the same in terms of people who make a bigger proportion of the population in developing countries compared to the developed nations. In this regard, the majority of people are young thus making it conducive for tobacco companies in terms of selling their products to this market segment. According to statistics, if the current situation and pattern continue, it is expected that by 2020, tobacco use will kill close to10 million people per year throughout the world, where more than 70% of these deaths will be occurring from the in less developed as well as emerging nations.

The Main Reasons why People Start Smoking

Across the globe, there have been deliberate efforts to curb the use of smoking tobacco (Ho, 386). In this regard, different stakeholders such as religious leaders, business people as well as governments have put measures to reduce the rate of smoking in their countries (Elisa Sebba Tosta de Souza et al., 768). However, one of the big questions that keep arising is why peopled engaged in smoking tobacco even after knowing the harmful effects on the health. Therefore, this section seeks to answer this question briefly by outlining some of the main reasons that make peopled start smoking.

Peer Pressure

According to Elisa Sebba Tosta de Souza et al, (768), one of the main reasons that make people start smoking is the peer pressure. Admittedly, most of the teenagers who indulge into smoking are influenced by their peers. The study indicates that there is sixty percent likelihood that if one starts smoking at early stage of his life, he will continue to smoke in his adulthood. Notably, young teenagers form the groups that are most susceptible to peer pressure since they are willing to experiment and learn new things in life. At the same time, it is at this stage that people fight for their independence from their parents or close relatives, thus making it hard to control the behavior of a teenager (Elisa Sebba Tosta de Souza et al., 770). As one this fighting to be independent, he is also trying to keep off from family roles, which may lead to the confrontation with the immediate society. If the close relatives and family members are strict to the individuals, the result is that the young person will try to oppose thus becoming frustrated (Lugoboni, 53). Consequently, one tries to find an affirmation by engaging in smoking, alcoholism, and such destructive behaviors.

Social Rewards

Social rewards are closely related to peer pressure as a causative agent to cigarette smoking. However, the social reward is much more complex than peer pressured is and has the potential of affecting more than just peer-pressure-sensitive tweens and teens (Elisa Sebba Tosta de Souza et al., 771). Briefly, social rewards refer to the gifts that are received by people after they participate in a group activity. In most cases social rewards is the feeling of acceptance that a smoker will feel when interacting with other smokers. For example, if at a working place smokers take a break at the similar time; there is the strong bond that is created as a result. Although it is argued that many adults mature to an extent of losing the urge of being influenced by their peers, every adult carries into adulthood the desire to be part of a given group as a “social reward”. In this connection, as smoking become more restricted in many parts of the world, an individual smoker can only find peace when in company of fellow smokers in a way of shielding themselves from the ridicule and complaints from the non-smokers, thus leading to tobacco addiction.

Risk-taking Behavior

Adults in countries where cigarette smoking is frowned upon are familiar with standard restrictions such as designated smoking zones, which limit their freedom of determining where and when to smoke (Elisa Sebba Tosta de Souza et al., 775). However, the application of rules, either social, physical, or legal, provide tempting lines to cross, where young people, who have risk-taking behavior, may be tempted to go against. Admittedly, in real life, there is always the tendency of going against the social rules or norms in the society. People with risk-taking behavior, always feel the unique thrill that comes when they break the law. Connectively, this behavior together with the natural tendency of teenagers in pushing the limits of rules that are imposed on them by parents, schools, and their communities, makes people, find they smoking tobacco that leads to addiction.

Parental Influence

Admittedly, the relationship that exist between parents tobacco use and their children smoking is blunt (Elisa Sebba Tosta de Souza et al, 776). In other words, children of actively smoking parents are more likely to begin smoking compared to the children of nonsmokers, or children of parents who have already quit smoking. Studies show that there is the likelihood of doubling the choice to smoke for children with parents who are active smokers. At the same time, the nonsmoking parents can as well act in a way that influences their children into smoking. For example, studies have shown that parents who place few or no restrictions on movies or films that show heavy drinking and smoking to their children, may set these children up to be smokers. Further, parents who react to smoking as if it is a socially acceptable behavior, though they may not be smoking, also make their children find no harm in smoking. In this way, parental influence in different ways may make a child indulge into smoking

Misinformation

Misinformation is key in making people start smoking. As noted above, most of the people in developing nations are yet to be aware of the dangers of smoking and the entire effects of one’s lifestyle (Elisa Sebba Tosta de Souza et al., 776). Although this may be true, the fact is that advertising by companies in the tobacco industry plays a key role in influencing people into smoking, which is their main objective. In the recent past, tobacco advertising has come under strict scrutiny. However, lingering effects of advertising, a mix of popular cultural beliefs, as well as simple misinformation still abound about smoking and tobacco.

In fact, in some developed nations, misinformation on smoking runs very deep, thus working directly against public health initiatives in curbing tobacco use. For example, a study of Japanese literature on smoking showed findings that could be shocking to many people who fight against tobacco use. In some instances, Tobacco is prompted as a source of increased vitality and good health. In the United States, the tobacco is supposed vitality was advertised many years back when the ads used to show the masculine characters such as the Marlboro Man (Elisa Sebba Tosta de Souza et al, 777). At the same time, there are some advertisements that show that certain brands of cigarettes are less harmful than others. In this way, the public is misinformed by the companies concerned, thus promoting the act of smoking in the society.

Genetic Predisposition

Alarge section of the field of modern medical research is concentrating on genetics. This is because from subtle mutations in an individual’s genes can mean a great difference between health and sickness from allergies to blood disorders as well as certain types of cancer (Elisa Sebba Tosta de Souza et al, 774). Medical genetic research is currently string to suggest that addiction to substances such as nicotine could be having genetic component. However, it must be understood that researchers are combining other factors including social factors, health factors in trying to determine if a genetic predisposition makes one more susceptible to taking up smoking compared to another. If the smoking tendency is observed along a given family or within a specific ethic group, researchers can use such data in the efforts to finding the correlation between genetic predisposition and tobacco smoking and addiction.

Stress Relief

Notably, for those people who are not suffering from severe mental illness, cigarettes smoking may still become a form of self-medication (Elisa Sebba Tosta de Souza et al., 775). Connectively, for many years, for example, soldiers have been smoking to deal with stress in the battlefield. , in this regard people whom may be experiencing lower levels of stress such as at their workplaces can resort into smoking to relieve themselves. However, the problem is that after one relieves himself, it becomes challenging to give up tobacco (Ho, 385). In this way, tobacco becomes both chemical and psychological crutch since any signs of stress make one to reach out for a cigar. Other reasons that make one to indulge into smoking include anxiety, media influence such as in advertising, among others.

The Effects of Smoking on the Body

Extensive research has been conducted on the effects of smoking on one’s health. Accordingly, there is no known safe way of smoking. For example, one cannot say that by replacing the cigarette with the pipe, cigar, or hookah can reduce the risks associated with tobacco. According to the American Lung Association, tobacco contains about six hundred ingredients which burn to produce more than seven thousand chemicals (Pampel, 66). Therefore, for an active smoker, every puff exposes one to all these chemicals, which are responsible for different health complications.

One of the effects of tobacco is on the central nervous system. According to research, nicotine is a stimulant for the CNS, and it reaches the brains within seconds. In this way, nicotine makes one feel energized for a while, but as these effects subside, one feels tired and craves for more. The result is that one can increase muscular degeneration, poor eyesight, and cataracts. At the same time, it can lead to weak sense of smell, taste, making food less enjoyable. On the other hand, tobacco has adverse effects on the respiratory system. By inhaling smoke over time, one’s lungs lose the ability to filter the harmful chemicals. Notably, the toxins are not sufficiently removed through coughing, making them be trapped in the lungs. In this way, smokers have the high risk of respiratory infections, flu, and colds (Robert 385). Through emphysema, the victims air sacs are destroyed will in chronic bronchitis the tubes’ lining in the lungs become inflamed. At the same time, children whose parents smoke are prone to wheezing, asthma, and coughing. Finally, long-term smokers are at a very high risk of lung cancer.

On the other hand, continued smoking adversely harms the cardiovascular system. After inhaling nicotine, one’s blood sugar is boosted which leads to feelings of tiredness. The blood vessel gets thinner thus blocking the free flow of the blood in the body. Consequently, the pressure of the blood vessel is affected. Other effects of smoking on the human body include changing the structure and color of skin, hair and nails, and interference with the reproductive and digestive system.

Economic, Social and Environmental Effects of Smoking

Howard Barnum, who is the World Bank Senior Economist, in his paper about the global economic burden of tobacco, concluded that the world tobacco market produces an annual global net loss of US$ 200 billion (Skirty, 61). In this observation, Barnum encouraged the developing countries to try to act on tobacco control policies including countering the advertisement and promotions in the tobacco industry. Admittedly, smoking creates a financial burden for both the smokers as well as their families. Approximately, it costs around $100 a week or $5200 a year if one was to smoke one packet of cigarettes per day. In this regard, it cannot be surprising to find that smoking is increasingly financial stressful as well as reducing material wellbeing of individuals and families. In reference to financial costs of smoking, it is clear that families apportion less money for essentials such as clothing, food, and housing.

Children in smoking household likely to have food insecurity twice as those in non-smoking families. At the most time, smokers are likely to experience more illnesses, which mean that families are made to cater for such individuals by meeting treatment expenses among others (Skirty, 75). Further, by falling sick or being disabled, due to health effects of smoking, individuals’ employment opportunities and income is tremendously reduced. In this way, the country lacks the services of persons who have been victims of smoking thus affecting the economy in different ways. Statistics have shown that close to 42% of low income smokers mostly report spending money on cigarettes rather than on essentials like shelter and food. Critically to note is that the eventual death of smokers is also a loss to the economy of a given country since the productivity of a country per capita could be harmed.

On the other hand, the society is affected in different ways. For example, smoking leads to the pollution of air, making room for different restrictions such as creation of smoking zones among others (Skirty, 55). At the same time, smoking is responsible for making an antisocial relationship between non-smokers and smokers. In this way, the two groups may not participate in social activities thus affecting societal progress. For example, religious groups do not like interact with smokers as they refer to such habits as unacceptable in religious teachings. Also people who are addicted to smoking and tobacco are likely to engage in crime especially if they are unable to get money to buy cigarettes. Consequently, such people make criminal gangs, which terrorize the communities and the society as a whole. At the same time, the same oppose find themselves in jail thus being detached from their families and the rest of the society. In this, it becomes a huge loss to the concerned families as the victim could be making a great contribution in providing for such families and the society.

Environmentally, cigarettes smoking also lead to negative impacts on the local and global environments. The growing of tobacco involves the use of large amounts of herbicides, fertilizers, and pesticides. Most of such substances are not only toxic but also carcinogenic (Skirty, 66). In most of the developing countries, the use of such chemicals is not regulated thus posing a high health risks to farmers and the surrounding communities or far away since the chemicals used contaminate water supplies. Finally, tobacco growing promotes deforestation in that forests have to be cleared for tobacco plantations and that tobacco leafs are dried by wood smoke which leads to clearance of more trees thus encouraging global warming.

Quitting Smoking

Notably, different methods have been proposed if one wants to quit smoking. One of such methods is through the “cold turkey” approach. Cold turkey entails relying one’s willpower, thus deciding to stop smoking at once. Therefore, unlike most of the methods where one is advised to go slow, cold turkey methods means going from a certain number of cigarettes per day to zero cigarettes per day at once. Gradual reduction is another method that one can use. Gradual reduction is the method mostly used by many victims. The basic aspect of this method is reducing the number of cigarettes being smoked by a given interval or smoking during odd or even hours.

The Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) entails the use of products that replaced some of the nicotine already utilized by the victim during smoking (Britt-Marie et al., 1). The doses of the replacement are slowly delivered to make one reduces cravings for smoking cigarettes (Cahill et al., 5). The efficient use of NRT cans doubles the success in quitting smoking. Other methods include the use of Zyban, which is an anti-smoking pill that does not contain nicotine, hypnosis, as well as Low-Level Laser Therapy.

Conclusion

In conclusion, as observed in the above brief analyses of tobacco smoking and its effects on the human health, it is clear that smoking cannot be encouraged at any time. Although many economies in the world have supported the establishment of tobacco industries, there is the need for stakeholders especially from the developing countries to sensitize the public on the dangers related to tobacco smoking.