Smoking Essay

In today’s generations most people know somebody that smokes cigarettes. Some of these smokers are coworkers, friends, family, or even themselves. Regardless of when they started smoking, it’s common knowledge that smoking is extremely harmful for the human body. According to the 2014 Surgeon General’s Report, “cigarette smoking has been linked to diseases of nearly all organs of the body.” Ironically most smokers fail to realize the gravity of the long term dangers they are exposing themselves to by smoking. Regardless of their choice, the long term uses of smoking cigarettes have been medically documented to cause lung damages, breathing issues, and heart complications.

Since the 1964 release of the Surgeon General’s report on smoking, it has become public knowledge that smoking can cause lung damage. To begin with, cigarettes are made with deadly ingredients that are known to be harmful. According to the American Lung Association, “there are approximately 600 ingredients in cigarettes and when they are burned they create more than 7,000 chemicals including acetone, ammonia, arsenic, butane, lead, tar and toluene.” The fact that various lethal chemicals are inhaled every time a cigarette is smoked is critical to the understanding just how dangerous smoking is to the lungs. According to the Surgeon General, smoking has been documented for “damaging the alveoli.” This detail is critical since the alveolus is the location where oxygen enters the bloodstream. In order words, the more a person smokes, the worse their lungs will deteriorate. As stated earlier, cigarette smoke contains a great quantity of chemicals and majority of them are harmful. The chemicals ammonia and arsenic when bought separately ca...

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...is means that smoking also increases a person’s chance of developing heart attacks and blood clots as well. Ironically the journal also points out that, smokers who do quit smoking for five years are at a much lower level of risk as nonsmokers. Therefore it is logical to assume smoking is unsafe for the cardiovascular system since it increases the risk of high blood pressure, heart attacks and strokes.

Overall cigarette smoking is destructive to human body. Smoking can cause lung damage through the various lethal chemicals that make up cigarette smoke. It can cause chronic breathing problems such as COPD by weakening the lung’s ability to produce oxygen. Additionally the smoking puts a strain on the heart by exposing it to preventable risks. Therefore the long term uses of smoking cigarettes will cause lung damages, breathing issues, and heart complications.