Smoking: The History and The Shocking Truths You Should Know

Iconic movie stars used to do it, your friends used to do it, and society condoned it or should I say encouraged it. How could something so fashionably commonplace and cool be so shockingly bad for our health? Better yet, how could we have been oblivious for so long to the harmful effects of tobacco smoking? As a society we smoked around children, the feeble and convalescents, it was as though we didn’t really know any better. Now even taking action to quit the habit, understanding its chemical effects and recognising that it’s the responsible move to make for our health and for those around us, it is a battle not easily won.

How Tobacco Smoking All Started

Tobacco smoking has been around for centuries and became a sensation throughout the world as the customary habit, universal to all cultures. “Lighting-up” was remarkably habitual; a normal part of everyday life, just like having a meal. Actually, right after a meal was the best time for some smokers to indulge in their habit; others prefer starting their day with a cup of coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other. It makes you wonder though, if deep down we knew but chose to ignore the fact that inhaling smoke directly into our lungs, several times a day, might not be good for us.

The “habit” of lighting-up was a little risqué to say the least, why else was it also synonymous with the “cool people,” those willing to stand their ground for an addictive habit they truly enjoyed.

In the beginning though, it did start off quite innocently. Tobacco was believed to be a cure-all, used by tribes in medicinal practices, commonly chewed to relieve toothaches, juiced and applied to the skin to kill lice, and frequently applied to dress wounds.

It is believed that we first came into contact with the tobacco plant some 18,000 years ago, prior to the domestication of plants. Asiatic migrants were the first exposed to the plant when they first crossed the Bering Straits and populated the continents, known today as the Americas, where the tobacco plant is indigenous.

There are 64 known species of tobacco, genus Nicotiana, but only two, rustica and tabacum, are used by the modern tobacco industry. It is believed that the widespread cultivation of these species began as early as 5000 B.C. and their genetic origin is the Andes Mountain near Peru or Ecuador. Before long, and over the next several millennia, Nicotiana worked its way across the Western Hemisphere, including offshore islands such as Cuba. In all its forms, tobacco was integral in the spiritual training and journeys of shamans, then becoming integrated into a daily narcotic shared by both men and women.

It also was not long before tobacco smoking met Christianity and became openly condemned. European Christians soon observed the native rituals as intoxicating and absolutely satanic. As the New World’s people fell to conquest, tobacco fell into the hands of European practitioners who revered its addictive powers.

Tobacco’s Global Spread

Eventually, around the world sailors who with the advent of global trade distributed tobacco and the smoking habits. The “weed” became integrated within diverse cultures and diagnosed as beneficial by the medical system of Europe, Asia and Africa.

Ironically, nicotine, though addictive, is an acquired taste. It is not naturally craved, particularly with respect to the smoke and unappealing, yellow-staining nicotinic residue. Thus began the scandalous history of tobacco companies and advertising, based solely on the premise of creating a demand and soliciting the virtues of their blends.

The targeted advertising and fierce competition among tobacco manufacturers use teaser ads which revolutionised advertising for other industries to follow. The infamous “Camels” ads in particular, generated interest by foreshadowing the arrival of a much sought-after item with their “The Camels are Coming” campaign. “Camels” cigarettes even had an appeal to teenagers with a cool-looking camel dressed up in dark glasses and matching leather jacket, the mascot for the brand. Women did not escape from the radar. Virginia Slims and the Lucky Strike Girls were supported by fashionable celebrities and plastered on billboards.

Cigarette manufacturers even deftly manoeuvred the rising health concerns of the 1950s through advertising. Beginning with filtered cigarettes said to reduce tar levels and continuing through the sixties in their pursuit to produce a safer cigarette. Their persistence laboured through to the eighties where after much effort, technological and chemical failures to succeed in a safer product, in addition to increased industry watchdogs and governmental scrutiny, relented to other tactics, often through psychological appeal.

Whether tobacco industries use addictive chemicals to create a more addictive product, sly advertising campaigns to lure customers or ramp-up advertising in developing countries where active governmental scrutiny is reduced, the industry continues to thrive.

What is Tobacco and When Did it Change to a “Fatal Habit”?

Tobacco is made from the dried leaves of the Nicotiana or tobacco plant. The seed of the plant is very small (about the size of a pin head) and has the ability to flourish and grow plentiful. One ounce of the plant houses about 300,000 seeds. The root system grow rapidly and develop large underground structures, hence its reference as a weed.

When the leaves are dried, they are treated with around 4000 different chemicals before being made into cigarettes. Many of these chemicals are known carcinogens or cancer causing substances, separate from the smoke itself.

Tar in cigarettes is the main cause of throat and lung cancer and is made up of many different chemical particles. It is easily identified as the yellow-brown substance that stains smoker’s teeth, fingers, and lungs. All cigarettes contain tar.

Nicotine, another label used to identify cigarettes, is the addictive component that makes smoking pleasurable.

In the 1940s, science caught-on to the deleterious effects of habit. In what is considered a landmark study scientists were able to correlate the rise in cigarette smoking to the rise in lung cancer cases. The conclusion would have a profound impact on the socio-cultural landscape as well as the political and advertising aspect of tobacco manufacture.

Damaging Health Effects of “Puffing Up”

The nicotine drug found naturally in cigarettes and other tobacco products is highly addictive. When nicotine is absorbed in the body it can cause a number of effects, including stimulating the nervous system to give a “high,” constricting blood vessels thereby increasing heart rate and blood pressure. Like tar, it is highly toxic and once served as a pesticide, doing the job quite well.

Needless to say smoking is the direct cause of countless diseases in human’s, many of them cancer producing, and is the top-most preventable cause of death worldwide. To give an idea of the types of carcinogens contained in tobacco, here is a list of some chemicals and their potent alternative uses in other products.

Some of the chemicals in Tobacco and there alternate commercial uses:

    DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) - insecticide
    Hydrogen cyanide - Gas chamber
    Naphthalene - Moth balls
    Carbon Monoxide - Car exhaust fumes
    Acetone - Paint stripper
    Toluene - Industrial solvent
    Ammonia - Floor cleaner
    Methanol - Rocket Fuel
    Arsenic - Termite poison
    Cadmium - Car batteries
    Butane - Lighter fluid

Long-term Effects: more people die of some- related diseases than road accidents, alcohol and illicit drugs. Smoking affects both the inside and outside of the body, including the following disturbances:

    Blindness
    Lung cancer and other cancers
    COPD - Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
    Stroke
    Cardiovascular Disease
    Increased blood pressure
    Infertility and impotence
    Shortness of Breath
    Gum disease, foul breath, teeth and nail yellowing, and wrinkling

Passive Smoking; breathing in smoke caused by someone else has been known to cause similar diseases as that of the actual smoker. Long periods of exposure can cause:

    Respiratory infections in young children, ear infections and decreased lung function
    Cause sneezing, coughing, sore throat and may initiate asthmatic and epileptic attacks
    Respiratory distress

Smoking during pregnancy is linked to miscarriages, low birth weights, premature births, and neonate developmental problems.

Combining Tobacco with other drugs:

Lighting-up and consuming other drugs increase the likelihood of a number of tobacco-related cancers. For example, a cigarette with caffeine causes increased heart rate and palpitations while use of alcohol at the same time restricts blood flow and can promote heart attack and stroke.

Women over thirty-five who smoke while taking contraceptive pills are more likely to die from a cerebrovascular accident or heart attack.

Why it is Still Difficult for Some to Quit

For those of us who still smoke, it requires a fierce determination and an intense need to preserve the pleasure of the habit while bearing with society’s current overt disdain for it. Barred from smoking even in your own home, that is if you live in an apartment or townhouse that prohibits it, so for a smoker, it requires finding novel ways to continue.

It’s not that smokers are clueless to the effects of smoking on their health. Many are more informed of newer scientific evidence on tobacco’s negative effects than most doctors (it is one of the most studied drugs out there and new information streams in regularly). With all addictive drugs, it is a not only difficult to quit the euphoric feeling that the drug brings but also the routine of it. It becomes a defining aspect of the individual, linked to each moment of their day.

The act of putting a cigarette or cigar in the mouth and lighting-up is habit forming. Often smokers speak of that act as an equally important part of the pleasure derived just as inhaling the smoke. Not only that, they find the simplest excuses to perform that act that it is then associated with everything they do. For hard smokers, taking a phone call requires a puff, feelings of stress, joy, sadness, are good enough reasons grab a pack. It could be hail storm outside or negative degree temperatures in the dead of winter, smokers find a creative solution to survive the elements while submissively giving in to their cravings.

So what can be said about this habit? It tells you first of all that it is not an easy habit to dismiss; the brain needs to be retrained and a new attitude adopted and reinforced through behaviour and is only accomplished in small steps. For avid smokers, where a pack and more a day is customary, it requires moving away from the rituals that cause you to light-up moment by moment.

A best-selling author and motivational speaker, Dr. Shad Helmstetter, summed it up quite nicely when he spoke of how to retrain our attitudes to reflect new behaviours, which will allow us to succeed in our goals. He included how smokers should approach this shift in brain waves by telling themselves, during the act of smoking, “I don’t smoke.” This self-talk will eventually conflict with the subconscious- self, making it easier to quit.

Help for Smokers

The misnomer about quitting is that you can turn to a less toxic cigarette to help you gradually. There is no such cigarette. Smokers, who feel they cannot stop on their own and truly want to, should speak with a health professional for sound advice and help with the way forward.

The majority of smokers want to quit and many have tried at least once. Some have been successful after several attempts and others have achieved their success going “cold turkey.”

Vitamin C is helpful for smokers who wish to give up. People who smoke have very depleted levels of Vitamin C in the body. Try taking Vitamin C daily, in a time released form or chewable. This will not only start to level an inbalance of Vitamin C in the smoker’s body but will help you to quit because Vitamin C changes and heightens your taste buds and will make cigarettes taste unplesant.

The good news about stopping is that your body starts to bounce back to its original healthier state within 24 hours as more oxygen reaches the tissues. Within 5 days most of the nicotine by-products are gone and your sense of taste and smell improves. Within a year almost all the nicotine is out of your system, your immune system recovers and your body will feel remarkably well.

For the 1.2 billion smokers throughout the world, one-third of which are in China, tobacco is not just a killer but a pleasure, a comforter, and an ally. Whether it has any medicinal benefit that initiated its ancestral use is debateable, what is not is the mounting evidence that it possesses “evil” as the early Christians pronounced, harmful in no uncertain terms to the vitality of the body. Nevertheless, it is an integral part of many lives for which the warnings on the packet can only protect them if they adapt to new mind-sets and are interested in change.