The use of tobacco, particularly cigarettes, is the single most preventable cause of death in the United States. Cigarette smoking also causes chronic lung disease, cardiovascular disease, strokes, cataracts, and nicotine poisoning. Smoking during pregnancy can cause stillbirth, low birth weight, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), and other serious pregnancy complications. Quitting smoking greatly reduces a person's risk in developing the diseases mentioned and can limit adverse health effects on the developing child.

Cigarette Smoking and Cancer Rates

Cigarette smoking causes 87 percent of all lung cancer deaths and lung cancer is also the leading cause of cancer deaths in both men and women. Smoking is also the leading cause of cancers of the larynx, mouth, pharynx, esophagus, and bladder. Tobacco smoke contains 4,000 chemical agents, including 60 carcinogens; many of these substances are toxic to the human body.

Nicotine is a drug naturally found in tobacco plants and is primarily responsible for the person's addiction to tobacco products. During smoking, nicotine is absorbed quickly into the bloodstream and travels to the brain in a matter of seconds. Now, this is the high that tobacco users are looking for.

Health Risks to Non-smokers

The health risks that can be caused by cigarette smoking are not just limited to smokers. Exposure to environmental tobacco smoke, or more popularly known as second hand cigarette smoke, raises the risk of non-smokers getting cancers and cardiovascular disease.

Nicotine Poisoning

This type of poisoning is not common knowledge to smokers and non-smokers alike, but it is connected to tobacco use. Historically, most cases of nicotine poisoning have been the result of the use of nicotine as an insecticide.

However, such use is less frequent now than before. Every year many children are taken to the hospital emergency rooms after eating cigarettes, cigarette butts, and nicotine based chewing gum. Consuming even one cigarette's worth of nicotine can cause nicotine poisoning in a child.

There are also reported cases that children are hospitalized when they used medicinal topical creams which are nicotine based. The symptoms that show that a child may have ingested nicotine are nausea, difficulty in breathing, stomach pains, and even seizures. Now the risks of this type of nicotine poisoning in children are higher in households where there is a smoker.

In the case of adult smokers, it would take at least 60 milligrams of nicotine to make one ill. This is the equivalent to 3 packs of cigarettes or half a cigar. The risk of nicotine poisoning is not just limited to smokers and their housemates. Tobacco leaf gatherers are also vulnerable. This occurs when moisture from tobacco leaves wet from the rain or morning dew are absorbed by the gatherers clothing, which, in turn, is ingested through skin contact.