WHY YOU MUST QUIT SMOKING

Over the years, cigarette smoking has been ignored until recently has caused the lives of people worldwide. Most people has not looked at the side effects of smoking. People today smoke almost everywhere: in clubs, toilet, in cars and other public places.Several years ago, the Government of Ghana via parliament banned public smoking for a number of reasons.

Smoking is responsible for several diseases, such as cancer, long-term (chronic) respiratory diseases, and heart disease, as well as premature death. Over 440,000 people in the USA and 100,000 in the UK die because of smoking each year. According the US CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), $92 billion are lost each year from lost productivity resulting from smoking-related deaths.

This piece is to expose you to the dangers of smoking. First, let’s look at what cigarettes are made of.

What are cigarettes?

The main ingredient in cigarettes is tobacco. Tobacco is a green, leafy plant that is grown in warm climates. Farmers use many chemicals to grow tobacco. They use fertilizers to make the soil rich and insecticides to kill the insects that eat the tobacco plant.

After the tobacco plants are picked, they are dried, and machines break up the leaves into small pieces. Artificial flavorings and other chemicals are added. Some chemicals are put in cigarettes to keep them burning; otherwise, they would go out.Chemicals in cigarettes and cigarette smoke are known to cause not only cancer but also other serious health problems. Many of the chemicals are poisonous. If a person ate one pack of cigarettes, he/she would die.

Chemical	Found in:
carbon monoxide	car exhaust
nicotine	bug sprays
tar	material to make roads
arsenic	rat poison
ammonia	cleaning products
hydrogen cyanide	gas chamber poison
cyanide	deadly poison
acetone	nail polish remover
butane	cigarette lighter fluid
DDT	insecticides
formaldehyde	to preserve dead bodies
sulfuric acid	car batteries
cadmium	used to recharge batteries
freon	damages earth's ozone layer

geranic acid	a fragrance
methoprene	a pesticide
maltitol	a sweetener not permitted to be used in foods in the U.S.

Three of the most widely known chemicals in cigarette are nicotine, tar, and carbon monoxide. Nicotine is a strong poisonous drug. It is the main ingredient in insecticides or bug sprays. In its pure form, just one drop on a person's tongue would kill him/her.

Tar is the oily material which remains after tobacco passes through the filter. When a smoker inhales, a lot of the tar sticks to and blackens the lungs.

Carbon monoxide is a poisonous gas. A smoker inhales this gas which is also found in the exhaust of a car. This gas interferes with our respiratory (breathing) and circulatory (heart, arteries, and veins) systems. When we breathe in air through our nose and mouth, the air passes down the windpipe (trachea) and bronchial tubes into the lungs. The cilia which are made up of small hairs and mucous (a sticky fluid also found in the nose) help to clean this air as it moves down and into the lungs. The cilia remove small pieces of dirt, dust, and germs.

Now, let’s look at the dangers associated with smoking. I have carefully outlined all the dangers and how it affects people who partake in smoking.

You probably know about the relationship between smoking and lung cancer, but did you know smoking is also linked to heart disease, stroke and other chronic lung diseases?  Smoking can also increase your risk for cancer of the bladder, throat and mouth, kidneys, cervix and pancreas. 

Smoking causes cancer

90% of lungcancer patients developed their disease because of smoking. Lung cancer is one of the most common causes of cancer deaths in the world. Smokers also have a significantly higher risk of developing:

Ø  Bladder cancer

Ø  Kidneycancer

Ø  Cancers of the pharynx and larynx (throat cancer)

Ø  Mouthcancer

Ø  Esophagus cancer

Ø  Cancer of the pancreas

Ø  Stomachcancer

Ø  Some types of leukemia

Ø  Cancer of the nose and sinuses

Ø  Cervicalcancer

Ø  Bowelcancer

Ø  Ovariancancer

Ø  In some cases, also breastcancer

Why you should quit cigarette.

• Smoking is the most preventable cause of death in the United States. 
• Almost one third of deaths from coronary heart disease are attributable to smoking and secondhand smoke.
• Smoking is linked to about 90% of lung cancer cases in the United States and across the world.
• About 20 percent of adult men and about 16 percent of adult women smoke.
• The highest percentage of people who smoke are between the ages of 21 and 34.
• About 54 percent of American children ages 3-11 are exposed to secondhand smoke.
• On average, smokers die more than 10 years earlier than nonsmokers. 
• You can be one of the millions of people who successfully quit every year.
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Who are secondary smokers?

People who inhale fumes from cigarettes are also under serious trouble. It is for this reason why we must prevent people from smoking in public. Because anytime we inhale fumes of cigarettes, we also share the same danger of dying.

It is for this reason why the government of Ghana passed a law banning all public smoking. The Public Health Bill was passed in July last year and assented to in November 2012. The Act consolidates the law relating public health to prevent disease, promote, safeguard, maintain and protect the health of humans and animals and to provide for related matters. Part six of the Act that deals with tobacco control measures prohibits smoking in public places and restricts advertising in relation to tobacco and tobacco products and sponsorship by tobacco manufacturers.

However, this particular bill seems a failure. With all the above reasons and facts, I entreat everyone to stay away from this dark smoke because it does nothing but steal, kill and destroy.

Adjei K Emmanuel

Dayz Entertainment.