Cigarette buds lying on the ground
How do people smoke these days?
- Cigarettes – Cigarettes are the most common way of consuming tobacco, especially among young people. A young person starts by trying a cigarette and then finds themselves addicted to nicotine, which is then hard to give up.There are several types of cigarettes that differ in shape but they all harm in the same way. Every day, we see tobacco companies trying to come up with something new to attract more people to succumb to the addiction while they make billions of dollars in profits. There are filtered cigarettes and others with low levels of nicotine, as well as rolled cigarettes either in white paper or brown paper (tobacco paper). They come with regular tastes while others are sweetened with several flavors.
- Cigars or Pipes – Contrary to popular opinion, smoking cigars or pipes is no less harmful to health than smoking cigarettes.The truth is that one cigar on average has more nicotine and tar than a pack of cigarettes and one large size cigar has 40 times the nicotine and tar found in one cigarette. The concentrated toxic substances and carcinogens in cigars means that regular cigar smoking is harmful, even in a small amount. Also, the number of people who die from mouth, throat or esophagus cancers due to cigar smoking is ten times higher than those who do not smoke.
- Shishas or Hookahs and Mouassal – It is commonly thought that smoking shisha and hookah can be less harmful than cigarettes, but the truth is that one shisha is equivalent to 50 to 60 cigarettes, and a two hour to three hour session of smoking a shisha is equivalent to smoking 25 cigarettes.One type is “mouassal” which is molasses tobacco, another is “jrak” which is tobacco added to a group of rotten fruits and the sweetened shisha which contains tobacco and specials kinds of fruits like apricot. All of these contain fermented material.
- Storing or Chewing Tobacco in the Mouth – Chewed and smoke-free tobacco is consumed through the mouth; it is smoking without the smoke. The person chews the tobacco – mixed with other ingredients – in their mouth for a sustained period of time where the juice from the tobacco is absorbed to the bloodstream and hence to the rest of the body.
References:
Smoking Awareness 