Smoking, in today’s world, typically refers to smoking a cigarette or sometimes a cigar. However, since 5000 BC this practise has been around. It existed mainly in African and Indian cultures as rituals in various ceremonies. With time it has grown from originally natural plant stems and leaves to pipes to now handy and simple cigarettes.
The main reason for a person to smoke is the temporary good feeling that it gives the smoker. The substance giving this feeling may vary but tobacco is the most common substance. Tobacco comes from the leaves of the plants belonging to the species Nicotiana. The chemical nicotine is what makes smoking tobacco pleasurable and addictive. In addition to this, marijuana is also used,; normally flavored with tobacco or herbal fruits.
An increasing amount of youth start smoking at ages as young as 18 and continue smoking into their adulthood. This increase in recent years can be related to the appealing advertisements of mainly cigarettes. Developing countries account for the most smoking teenagers due to the lack of awareness of the health risks linked with smoking.
Over years of constant smoking, the chemicals in the tobacco smoke bank on the lungs, with time, turning into a tumour, resulting in lung cancer. Smoking is responsible for majority of lung cancer deaths. The rapid growth in the number of deaths due to smoking related lung cancer has to lead to many campaigns to stop smoking. Even packets of cigarettes now hold health warnings claiming that smoking is harmful to health.
Many countries have banned smokingin public areas in attempts to completely stop smoking. In airports, special smoking rooms are allocated for smoking persons. These efforts are to not only stop smoking people of the habit, but to cut down the number of passive smokers. Passive smokers are greatly affected too as they do not have the advantage of the filter found in almost all cigarettes. This has lead to many protests by passive smokers to stop smoking, not only in public areas, but everywhere in the country.
It could be said that the campaign to stop smoking is growing as fast as the tobacco industry. Things like nicotine patches, different types of treatments are now available to help people quit the habit and stop smoking. Usually it takes a heavy smoker a few years to stop smoking completely, but with the help of these tools the time taken to stop smoking has reduced to months.