When your parents were young, people could buy
cigarettes and smoke pretty much anywhere - even in hospitals! Ads for
cigarettes were all over the place. Today we're more aware about how bad
smoking is for our health. Smoking is restricted or banned in almost all public
places and cigarette companies are no longer allowed to advertise on TV, radio,
and in many magazines.
Almost everyone knows that smoking causes cancer,
emphysema, and heart disease; that it can shorten your life by 10 years or
more; and that the habit can cost a smoker thousands of dollars a year. So how
come people are still lighting up? The answer, in a word, is addiction.
Once You Start, It's Hard to Stop
Smoking is a hard habit to break because tobacco
contains nicotine, which is highly addictive. Like heroin or other addictive
drugs, the body and mind quickly become so used to the nicotine in cigarettes
that a person needs to have it just to feel normal.
People start smoking for a variety of different
reasons. Some think it looks cool. Others start because their family members or
friends smoke. Statistics show that about 9 out of 10 tobacco users start
before they're 18 years old. Most adults who started smoking in their teens
never expected to become addicted. That's why people say it's just so much
easier to not start smoking at all.
No comments:
Post a Comment