Dangers of smoking

Here are about dangers of smoking.

Cigarette smoking is a known health risk. While cigars and other smoking tobacco, such as pipes that are not as common as cigarette smoking, the dangers are the same. Some new evidence that smoking tobacco through a water pipe can be toxic ("Bong") as cigarettes and cigars. Most smokers are aware of the dangers and warnings on the packaging, it is difficult for an eye to the potentially fatal consequences of smoking cigarettes.

Most smokers at some point or the other hold on to the belief that they are immune to the dangers of cigarette smoking – ‘it won’t happen to me’, ‘I will quit soon’, ‘I am a light smoker’. However, the most serious consequences of smoking can strike at any time, irrespective of the number of cigarettes consumed in a day or for the period one is smoking. Individual susceptibility to the toxic compounds means that a light smoker smoking for less than a year may develop health related complications while a heavy, long term smoker may be unaffected.

It is accepted that smokers who start smoking from an early age, smoke for prolonged periods of their life or ‘heavy’ smokers will be more at risk. Smoking lighter offers a false sense of protection – light cigarettes (low nicotine and tar) are just as dangerous as heavier cigarettes. Tobacco contains nicotine which is highly addictive. It is this addiction that compels a smoker to continue smoking leading to prolonged periods of cigarette smoking and possibly even heavier daily consumption. Apart from the nicotine, burning tobacco also releases a host of other harmful substances like carbon monoxide (similar to fumes released by car exhausts) and cyanide (a well known, rapid acting poison).