elenanago

tobacco and its harms

December 11, 2012 elenanago Leave a comment

Tobacco is the most consumed drug in our world. Some years ago it wasn’t frowned upon, but nowadays smokers are marginalized. Two years ago the Spanish parliament approved an anti-smoking law. Now smokers have to go out from where they are to smoke. And I think that this is a good law because non-smokers have to have more rights than the other. I dont mean that smokers deserve less rights but those who don’t like it should have priority.

Thats what smoking does to your body:
“Smoking hurts your lung’s natural cleaning and repair system and traps cancer-causing chemicals build in your lungs. Smoking destroys the tiny hairs, which line the upper airways and protect against infection. Normally, there is a very thin layer of mucous and thousands of these hairs lining the insides of your breathing tubes. The mucous traps the little bits of dirt and pollution you breath oxygen in, and the hairs move together like a wave to push the dirt-filled mucous out of your lungs. Then you have to waste your time coughing , swallow, or spit up the mucous, and the dirt is out of your lungs. When your lungs’ natural cleaning and repair system is hurt, germs, dirt and chemicals from cigarette smoke stay inside your lungs and never come out. This puts you at risk for a cough that never goes away, chest infections, lung cancer, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease .”

But not only those who smoke are who suffer it’s damage. I’m referring to secondhand smokers. Secondhand smokers are who breathe the smoke when they are not smoker, for example, children, waiters… here we have the result of the damage that it causes:

-The EPA says secondhand smoke causes 3,000 cancer fatalities in Americans each year.
– The American Heart Association says that secondhand smoke causes 50,000 fatal heart attacks in Americans each year.
– An unspecified number of Americans are dying each year from “respiratory illnesses” attributable to secondhand smoke.

Most of the smokers are young. There are only a few who start smoking being an adult.
Teenagers start with it because they think that it is cool or that they may have more friends.
I don´t know. But what we know is that smoking is really harmful for our health and we must
not start with it.
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The principal countries that cultivate tobaco are: Cuba, India, China, USA and Pakistan.
They use many pesticides that harm seriouly the ground. Tobacco companies recommend up to 16 separate applications of pesticides just in the period between planting the seeds in greenhouses and transplanting the young plants to the field. Pesticide use has started because the producers want to get larger crops in less time. Pesticides often harm tobacco farmers because they are unaware of the health effects and the proper safety protocol for working with pesticides. These pesticides, finally, end up in the soil, waterways, and the food chain.