What you don’t know about cigarettes
Take a second and think to yourself. Why are cigarettes legal in our society still to this day? The things that smoking can do to your body are awful and extreme. So extreme it can cause cancers and deaths. Lung cancers and heart diseases have been seen to be caused by smoking. Although cigarettes give a big profit to the economy, they kill people every day. The ingredients in the cigarettes are the reason why smoking is the number one cause of deaths, if people actually know what cigarettes are doing to their body then why are they doing it? Most people don’t even know what is in the cigarettes they are smoking let alone what they are doing to their bodies.
“One cigarette contains four thousand chemicals. Cigarette smoke produces seven thousand chemicals, sixty-nine” (lung.org) of them are known to cause cancer. It is just as bad to breathe in second hand smoke especially if you are a child. “Second hand smoke is accounted for thirty thousand to one hundred and fifty thousand deaths per year due to lower repertory track infections in infants”.” Causing seven thousand to fifteen thousand hospitalizations. All of this is a result from smoking cigarettes around children and people”.
Cigarettes contain chemicals that are used in everyday things, and people don’t even know it. Like acetone which is found in nail polish remover, acetic acid which is an ingredient in hair dye, arsenic which is found in rat poisoning, butane which is an ingredient in lighter fluid, carbon monoxide which is released in car exhaust fumes, hexamine found in barbeque lighter fluid, lead which is found in batteries, naphthalene an ingredient in moth balls, methanol the main component in rocket fuel, tar a material used to for plowing roads and tolvere used to make paint (lung.org). All of these ingredients attack the body slowly and kill people and their loved ones every day.

Smoking is also bad for the environment. Major cigarette companies use four miles of paper to roll the cigarettes and for packaging per hour. “Every three hundred cigarettes two trees are wasted”. Finally when people are finished smoking their cigarettes, they throw them on the ground. It will take twenty five to twenty six years for the cigarette bud to completely decompose (men's health ). Furthermore, cigarettes not only hurt the people smoking them but also the environment.
Nicotine is an element is the cigarette that causes the addiction. “More than thirteen million smokers try to quit, but less the five percent succeed.” (lung.org). Similar to cocaine, heroin, and marijuana, nicotine upsurges stages of the neurotransmitter dopamine, this affects the brain paths that control the senses. Most tobacco smokers get long-term brain changes followed by non-stop nicotine smoking which result in addiction which leads to obsessive drug seeking and use. Even in the face of harmful penalties. Studies show that additional compounds in tobacco smoke, such as acetaldehyde, may heighten nicotine’s effects on the brain (drugabuse.gov). When the smoker is without nicotine they will begin to withdrawal causing irritability, attention difficulties, sleep disturbance, increased appetite, and powerful cravings for nicotine. If drugs are illegal in the United States and nicotine cause drug like withdrawals why is it still legal?
Although cigarettes give a big profit to the government, they kill people every day. Cigarettes cause diseases and cancers due to the ingredients in the cigarettes. They are the reason why smoking is the number one cause of deaths. Cigarettes are extremely harmful to the smoker and people around them. The government needs to put an end to cigarettes if they care about their citizen’s well-being.