Cigarette Anyone?

Smoking cigarettes, it seems is even worse than any of us thought it possibly could be.  

I recall, many years ago reading in an American Cancer Society article about the “safe amount of smoking”  Turns out that - according to them - ONE puff on a cigarette would paralyze for up to twelve hours the tiny hairs (cilia) in our lungs that constantly sweep out debris, smoke, dust, grit, mucus and so on up and out.  Obviously, even if there were no noxious ingredient in cigarette smoke, that would still be enough to eventually do us in.  Our lungs would slowly fill up with debris from the bottom up.  Turns out that back then that was where most lung cancers started - deep in the bottom of the lungs.  

Ammonia has been added now, the government says.  Why ammonia?  Apparently that helps the nicotine - and the carcinogenous ingredients added to the cigarettes - to pass more easily through the blood-brain barrier.  Ammonia added to commercially made cigarettes can boost the availability of nicotine up to 100 times, says a new study by the Oregon Graduate Institute of Science and Technology in Portland.  The process of increasing the impact of nicotine by adding ammonia is called "free-basing," which is similar to the chemical process used to heighten the effects of cocaine. Like cocaine, nicotine exists in two forms -- acid and base. When ammonia is added, the nicotine converts from acid to base form. The base form can vaporize more easily from the smoke particles into the gas phase, enabling it to deposit directly on the lung tissue and immediately diffuse throughout the body.

Why are these additives placed in the cigarette to pass so quickly into the body/mind?  Ask any writer about "the hook", which is a phrase used to begin a story to catch the mind of anyone who might be glancing through a magazine or book.
Fewer drags now than previously required will get a smoker hooked.

Cigarette smoke contains over 4,000 chemicals, including 43 known cancer-causing (carcinogenic) compounds and 400 other toxins. These include nicotine, tar, and carbon monoxide, as well as formaldehyde, ammonia, hydrogen cyanide, arsenic, and DDT.  

Something new has been added recently - in addition to ammonia -  flavoring.   Flavors that make the cigarettes more attractive to children and people who are  “thinking” about taking up smoking. 

Advertisements for cigarettes have changed too.  Notice the movies.  How many have you seen lately featuring stories from days when smoking was in vogue.  Particularly movies about World War II.  In fact, how many movies have you seen lately that had NO smoking scenes in it at all?

The real warning to me about the new report concerns what we call “Second Hand Smoke”.  Smoke you breath in from smokers.  We call it “smoke” , it really is a gas.  And it is a poisonous gas.  And according to these newly published findings, it will kill you and permanently cripple your children.