How Nicotine Works

Millions of people worldwide are addicted to smoking, especially tobacco smoking. Numerous queries erupt as to what is it about tobacco that makes people so compelled to use it despite all of the admonitions?

Smoking or chewing tobacco makes people feel good, even mildly euphoric. While tobacco is a cocktail of thousands of chemicals that evolve naturally in a tobacco plant (known as Nicotiana tabacum), one, nicotine, produces the stimulating effects and makes it all the more difficult to quit smoking.

Nicotine is a chemical combination of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and sometimes oxygen. Organically found such combination is known to have compelling effects on the human body. A similar variant, caffeine is commonly found in coffee and tea.

The commonest and the speediest way to get nicotine into the bloodstream is through inhalation. Nicotine both invigorates and relaxes the smoker. It readily diffuses through skin, lungs and mucous membranes into the bloodstream of the smoker.

It is through these blood vessels that it travels to the brain giving the much desired stimulating effect.

Though a normal cigarette contains 8 to 20 milligrams of nicotine, depending upon the brand, only 1 mg is actually absorbed by the body through cigarette smoke.

Known to be a silent killer, smoking harms nearly every organ of the body. Of late, the list of diseases caused by smoking has been expanded to include abdominal aortic aneurysm, acute myeloid leukemia, cataract, cervical cancer, kidney cancer, pancreatic cancer, pneumonia, periodontitis, and stomach cancer apart from the previous known cancers of bladder, esophageal, laryngeal, lung, oral, and throat. Smoking also affects the reproductive system and may lead to sudden infant death syndrome.

An estimated 45.1 million adult Americans are habitual smokers, accounting to 21 percent of the U.S. population. Adding to the woes, 22.3 percent of high school students and 8.1 percent of middle school students took to nicotine smoking in 2005.

Being hopeful that the smoking habit will not relapse, the Great American Smokeout-an annual event held in the United States to encourage Americans to quit tobacco smoking, challenges people not to smoke cigarettes for 24 hours.

Sponsored by the American Cancer Society, the event is held on the third Thursday in November. First held in 1977, 2006 marks the 30th anniversary of the event.