Life, Society, and Drugs

Sepede 1

Cameron Sepede
Professor Ibarra
Health 1050
April 4, 2016
Tobacco
What is Tobacco? Tobacco is, by definition, a plant that yields nicotine-rich leaves
grown in America and parts of China. The leaves are then cured by a process of drying
and fermentation to be used later for smoking or chewing (The definition of Tobacco)
Though there are many different specific names for tobacco use, this article will primarily focus on the two broader uses of smokeable and non-smokeable tobacco. For example, smokeable tobacco includes items such as cigarettes, cigars, hookah, and the like;
While smokeless tobacco generally only refers to chewing tobacco and snuff or snus. It
is not the tobacco leaf itself that is addictive, is it the drug nicotine, mentioned above,
that is the addictive culprit.
One in every five deaths in the United States is caused as a direct result of the
use of smoking tobacco. That figure does not take into account the deaths as a result to
smokeless tobacco use. All combined, tobacco use in general causes 440,000 deaths in
America per year. Of the two forms of tobacco use, smokeable and smokeless, smokeable tobacco is far for dangerous and much more detrimental to ones health than
smokeless tobacco is. However, the uses and dangers of both will be discussed in this
essay.

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The use of smokeless or chewing tobacco are quite straight forward. You put
the tobacco in your mouth and chew on it. Technically, you don't actually chew on it.
One simply takes the chewing tobacco and places it between the lip or gums and enjoys
the nicotine sensation as well as the flavor the chewing tobacco provides. Chewing tobacco is found in three forms which can generally be purchased at any gas station market or grocery store. These three forms include: Dipping tobacco, full tobacco leaf, and
pouches.
The first form, which simply put dip is ground up tobacco leaf that is
packed into circular tins or cans . These cans are then sold individually or as logs
which are a grouping of 5 cans in a plastic wrapper used when users wish to purchase
the product in bulk fashion rather than one at a time. Though dipping tobacco certainly
does put addictive into the product it is popularly believed that one of these addictive
includes fiber-glass thought to put up the users lips which in-turn gets the nicotine into
the blood faster therefore making the user feel the sensation sooner. This however is an
old wives tale. Though glass like crystals can be scene with the naked eye in an everday can of dipping tobacco, those are simply salt crystals that form naturally in product.
The second form, full leaf chewing tobacco is as the same describes, a full tobacco leaf that has been dried and cured for the purposes of chewing. The user of fullleaf tobacco experiences a similar nicotine high as a use of dipping tobacco and this
high is actually produced by the body in the same way. The body absorbs the nicotine
into the blood stream directly through the saliva. The saliva dissolves the nicotine which
is then absorbed through arteries in the mouth.

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The third form of smokeless tobacco, pouches is simply dipping tobacco that is
contained in small, thin bags that are no bigger than a bottle cap that is also sold in
cans similar to the ones that regular dip is sold in. These pouches are a lot cleaner than
its free-lance counterpart and provide a similar nicotine affect on the user that the other
previous two uses also provide.
Though it is commonly understood that smokeless or chewing tobacco is 90%
less dangerous than its smokeable counterpart, it is also understood that there are
some serious medical consequences to the initial and prolonged use of smokeless tobacco. These dangers come from the constant contact of the cancer-causing tobacco
leaf containing the drug nicotine which as stated before, is the real killer in all of this.
Since the product is used by needed constant contact with the users gums, the nicotine
absorbed through the site of contact can cause cells to duplicated out of control causing
a tumor. It is not understood how long this cancer-causing process can take, it is actually a very personal thing. For same reported cases, it can take only months while others
may need decades. In either case, it is understood that chewing tobacco causes cancer.
Besides cancer, the pro-longed use of chewing tobacco can still cause many
other mouth diseases. Your gums and teeth are very negatively affected by the prolonged use of chewing tobacco. This can cause gum disease, teeth loss, the yellowing
of the teeth, and many other mouth complications.
As we all already know and as stated previously, tobacco contains the highly addictive stimulant nicotine which is the cause of the high you get when using tobacco
products as well as the cancer and hearth disease you may receive as a result of using
tobacco products as well. But what exactly does nicotine do? Nicotine supplies the user

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with an increased alertness, awareness, and focus, which is a reason as to why athletes
such as baseball players enjoy using chewing tobacco while on the field. As well as an
all-around stimulant, medically speaking, nicotine increases the users heart rate, blood
pressure, and causes adrenaline to enter the blood stream. Just like heroin and cocaine, tobacco is like dopamine and that creates a pleasure for the user.
For many tobacco users, negatives affects on the users brain take place through
the continued nicotine exposure which can, over time, lead to addiction. Addictions is a
condition of compulsive drug seeking and use even in the face of negative consequences. Usually experiences tobacco users have an irregular heart beat as well as a
high blood pressure, a very dangerous condition to live with for an extended period of
time. These chronic affects only apply to a regular user of tobacco as opposed to the
occasional. When an addicted user tries to quit, he or she experiences withdrawal
symptoms including irritability, attention difficulties, sleep disturbances, increased appetite, and powerful cravings for tobacco. Smokeless tobacco (such as chewing tobacco and snuff) also increases the risk of cancer, especially oral cancers. If you are addicted to chewing tobacco for an extended amount of time you run the risk of losing your
gums as well as causing tooth decay and loss of teeth. Your teeth start to turn to yellow
and become very hard to maintain. If you do receive mouth cancer from chewing tobacco you can even end up losing your jaw. To fix this problem they can take the fat out of
your buttocks and then insert it into your gums or your lip to attempt to maintain original
form. Experts say that an average sized amount of chewing tobacco held in the users
mouth for thirty minutes or more equates to smoking five cigarettes. This does not bode
well for the regular user of chewing tobacco because a regular user usually has at least

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three or four dips per day which, if you actually think about it, is a whole pack of cigarettes in one day.
A study in 2010 estimated 69.6 million Americans aged 12 or older reported current use of tobacco products. 58.3 million (23.0 percent of the population) were current
cigarette smokers, 13.2 million (5.2 percent) smoked cigars, 8.9 million (3.5 percent)
used smokeless tobacco, and 2 million (0.8 percent) smoked pipes, confirming that tobacco is one of the most widely abused substances in the United States.
We have discussed up to this point how and why people use tobacco products
and how addicting they can be. However, how hard is it to stop using tobacco products
all together once you have started? Well, the answer is, that depends. It depends on
what form of tobacco you consumed, how much in a single sitting you consume, as well
as how many sittings per week, month, year, etc. you consume, and how long you have
kept this habit up. For someone who, for example, has been smoking a pack a day for 6
years, yeah the habit might be hard to kick. But for someone who recently just started, it
will be a little easier.
Tobacco, just like any other drug has a sort of learning curve. Simply put, the
more of the product you use, the more you get used to its affects and the more you
have to use the product to maintain that same initial positive feeling it gave you in the
first place. Nicotine is actually very easy to build a tolerance for which is why tobacco is
so dangerous because you can get hooked on tobacco products very quickly.
Withdrawing from pro-longed tobacco use is a very difficult thing to do. Most extreme users do not have the self-control or the mental ability to simply give the product

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up cold Turkey. Pro-longed users usually need some sort of aid or nicotine substitute.
For example, tobacco addicts may substitute their cigarettes for nicotine gum or nicotine
patches. These products help take the edge off and even can aid in a sort of detox from
the drug to help users curve their habit all together. However, the purpose of these
products is to simply put the nicotine into the body without the use of smokeless or
smokeable tobacco products.
Withdrawal side affects from nicotine can include, but are not limited to: weight
gain, dry mouth, the sharks, cold sweats, irritability, and nausea. Dry mouth and weight
gain are sort of one in the same because they are caused by the lack of saliva in the
mouth which causes the user to compensate with food and drink, usually in an excessive amount. The other symptoms are your body sort of falling out of disfunction because it has become so used to operating with nicotine in its symptom that it has forgotten how to operate normally without it. These withdrawal symptoms are essentially a cry
for more nicotine, which causes users to revert back to old habits and loose the ability to
quick even more.
In conclusion, tobacco is a highly addictive stimulant that causes millions of
deaths every year. It does this by causing cancer and heart failure through excessive
use of the product. Chewing tobacco is a very bad habit and it causes a lot of problems.

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Bibliography

"The Definition of Tobacco." Dictionary.com. Web. 04 Apr. 2016.

"Tobacco/Nicotine." Tobacco/Nicotine. 2014. Web. 05 Apr. 2016.
"What Are the Medical Consequences of Tobacco Use?" What Are the Medical
Consequences of Tobacco Use? Web. 05 Apr. 2016.
"What Are the Extent and Impact of Tobacco Use?" What
"Letter From the Director." Letter From the Director. Web. 05 Apr. 2016.