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An estimated 46.5 million adults
in the United States smoke cigarettes even though
this single behavior will result in death or disability
for half of all regular users. Cigarette smoking
is responsible for more than 400,000 deaths each
year, or one in every five deaths. Additionally,
if current patterns of smoking persist, over 5
million people currently younger than 18 will
die prematurely from a tobacco-related disease.
Paralleling this enormous health toll is the economic
burden of tobacco use: more than $75 billion in
medical expenditures and another $80 billion in
indirect costs.
Source: CDC
Nicotine is one of more than 4,000 chemicals
found in tobacco smoke and is the primary component
that acts on the brain. Smokeless tobacco products
such as snuff and chewing tobacco also contain
high levels of nicotine as well as other toxins.
Nicotine is absorbed through the skin and mucosal
lining of the mouth and nose or by inhalation
into the lungs. Depending on how tobacco is taken,
nicotine can reach peak levels in the bloodstream
and brain rapidly. Cigarette smoking, for example,
results in rapid distribution of nicotine throughout
the body, reaching the brain within 10 seconds
of inhalation. Cigar and pipe smokers, on the
other hand, typically do not inhale the smoke,
so nicotine is absorbed more slowly through the
mucosal membranes of their mouths, the same as
for smokeless tobacco.
A typical smoker will take 10 puffs on a cigarette
over a period of 5 minutes that the cigarette
is lit. Thus, a person who smokes about 1-1/2
packs (30 cigarettes) daily, gets 300 "hits"
of nicotine to the brain each day. These factors
contribute considerably to nicotine's highly addictive
nature.
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