In this day and age it is inconceivable that any reasonably informed person could be unaware of the the fact that smoking tobacco is extremely bad for you. Television government sponsored advertisements showing us the poison deposited in our arteries. Doctors surgeries displaying graphic pictures of sooted and tarred up lungs. Schoolchildren being given lectures from a very young age.

However, despite this, people still start smoking, and some groups, notably young women, are actually showing a percentage increase in the take up of tobacco use. It would appear that for these people at least, smoking still has a lingering romantic image (those old TV and film advertisements). And of course peer pressure, especially among the young is very persuasive.

Tobacco can be used in lots of different ways. It can be chewed as chewing tobacco. It can be snorted as snuff, and of course it can be inhaled by smoking shredded tobacco in the form of cigarettes, probably the most common method of using tobacco in the world today.

Of course however tobacco is consumed it is highly dangerous, but as smoking is by far the most popular way to use it, it is smoking that has of recent years received the most attention by both the medical profession and the popular media.

When a mouthful of smoke is inhaled into the lungs, their 75 square metres of effective surface area, designed specifically to facilitate the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide to and from the bloodstream, is equally efficient in allowing the nicotine in tobacco to pass into the bloodstream practically instantaneously. It is this nicotine of course that smokers crave, and become addicted to. It being as addictive (if not more so) as cocaine and heroin.

However, it is not just the nicotine that is found in cigarette tobacco. There are over 4,000 chemicals in it also, and a lot of them are deadly. The smoke from an average manufactured cigarette contains around 40 known carcinogens, and around 400 or so other toxins. Which, by the way can also be found in such things as rat poison, wood varnish, and nail polish remover. Offer a packet of rat poison round the room and see how many takers you get!

It is medical fact that cancer in various forms is by far the most common disease directly related to smoking tobacco. Lung cancer is caused in 90% of cases by smoking, and tobacco use is now in fact associated with 30% of all diagnosed cancers.

Smoking is also associated with other lung diseases, such as bronchitis and emphysema, both of which are often fatal. Stdies have shown that 75% of emphysema and bronchitis fatalities are linked to tobacco smoking.

It is also widely accepted that smoking does indeed shorten your life. Smokers can expect to live 15 years less than average. Perhaps it is surprising that they live as long as they do, given the chemical cocktail taken in daily.

Then we come to the harm that tobacco smokers do to others around them, including their own family and friends. The effects of passive smoking are well documented. A very high profile case a few years back in U.K. being that of the entertainer Roy Castle. A lifelong non-smoker who contracted lung cancer through his performing in pubs, clubs, and other venues where smoking was permitted in those days, dying two days after his 62nd birthday as a result.

Smoking is also known to affect unborn children. The children of mothers who smoke are more likely to be born underweight, with underlying problems such as asthma and chest infections.

Knowing all these things as many of us do, it seems amazing that people smoke tobacco at all. However, humans being human, many of us do, and many of us are desperate to quit. The good news is that it can be done, it doesn’t have to be traumatic, and it’s never too late to start enjoying the benefits of being a non-smoker.