By: Sahil Ahmad Moochi
If the statistics concerning public heath, globally, are taken into consideration, tobacco is the most dangerous substance and consumes more lives than any other cause.
Despite the fact that people generally know the ill-effects of tobacco consumption very well, the use of tobacco doesn’t stop at all and rather its trend, particularly smoking, increases each passing day. The amount of nicotine in each cigarette takes the smoker closer to dead and disease and yet people take liberty and ignore the hard facts.
Apart from the well known diseases like cancer and heart ailments, use of tobacco causes many more problems. When one smokes the effects on the body are quickly visible as pulse rate increases, breathing become faster and there is a dizziness caused by it. The poisons components like carbon monoxide, hydrogen chloride and ammonia gas apart from nicotine and tar are a lethal combination that no sane person should really prefer.
Smoking causes tremendous impact on lungs and fills them with unhealthy content that disallows proper breath resulting in breathlessness and finally lung cancer. Emphysema is a very serious disease and it takes years to develop but its damage cannot be undone. The disease can be cause by any substance in the lungs, which cause irritation and swilling. Cigarette smoke is the most common cause of this disease as tobacco contains acids and irritant substances for it.
Furthermore, the contents of tobacco when smoked irritate the wall of throat and the conical tubes. Mucus, which clogs up the respiratory passages, makes breathing very difficult and leads to what is generally known as ‘smokers cough’. It also troubles bronchial tubes and in the absence of treatment bronchitis seriously weaken lungs.
They only chance your lungs have to fully recover is when you stop cigarette smoking. One may ask a humble question-is smoking really worth losing your breath and your life?
Smoking cigarettes and murjania are closely related and latest researches show the youth who smoke cigarette are fourteen times more likely to try murijana compared to those who don’t smoke or use any tobacco products.
The writer is an 11th grade student of Fazil Kashmiri Memorial HSS Chandilora Tangmarg. The essay was written for a workshop organized by Arts in Life Initiative Foundation.
