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Running Head: Why Stop Smoking?

Getting Knowledge About Consumption of Tobacco: A Research Report

Jesus O Gaspar Espinoza
University of Texas at El Paso
Mr. Rodriguez
RWS 1302: Rhetoric and Writing Studies

Instructor: Marco Rodriguez

Abstract
The tobacco has its origin in Latin America in the Andean area between Peru and Ecuador, and
subsequently extended to the entire Latin America by the same indigenous. The tobacco was
initially used by the indigenous people of different ways; they wrapped the tobacco leaves in
corn leaves and the smoked, they chewed the leaves, also used it in rituals or as medicine in the
form of cough syrup. Subsequent to the arrival of the Spaniards to America, they took the
tobacco to Europe, where it was used as a medicine for all condition calling it "hierva santa or
hierva para todos los males". Currently the tobacco is used in large quantities in different
presentations such as cigarettes, cigars, soluble products, electronic cigarettes, chewing tobacco,
monkfish, and other presentations, which certain persons the use it by different causes. The
purpose of this research report is to let the readers know about the economic and health effects
that smoking tobacco involves, either directly or indirectly, as well as their benefits.

Instructor: Marco Rodriguez

Getting Knowledge About Consumption of Tobacco: A Research Report

Introduction
Tobacco is a product made from a plant of the family of the Solanaceas, Nicotine
Tabacum, it origins from America. The tobacco was used in its beginnings as cigarettes that
indigenous peoples made with corn leaves, and even for the most part as medicine; later in the
present has been used mostly by addiction to its main ingredient that is Nicotine. Tobacco
consumption by the man has grown increasingly through the years and at the same time the rate
of deaths caused by the consumption of it. On the one hand, the tobacco is a very useful product
as for example: is used as an insecticide, as industrial oil, protein edible, among others use; but it
is also very dangerous causing economic and health losses. But:
1. Why people consume tobacco?
2. What is the economic cost of tobacco consumption?
3. What are the health effects of smoking?
4. What are the health benefits of quitting tobacco use?
It is necessary to know the answers to these questions about the consumption of tobacco in order
to understand the people who consume and also make a decision of using or avoiding its
consumption.
Why do people consume tobacco?
Not smokers truly understand why he or she smokes. Allen Carr. Easy
way to stop smoking
Instructor: Marco Rodriguez

The reality of because people consume tobacco is because they are addicted to the main
substance of the tobacco named Nicotine.
Nicotine is a substance contained in the tobacco that when it is smoked, it goes directly to
the lungs and it is easily absorbed by the blood. The lungs distribute the nicotine throughout the
body. Although if it is smoked by only a small amount and although the flavor is disgusting, this
reaches the brain quickly adapting the body to nicotine, thus creating a small addiction to it
which is increasing the amount of tobacco that is consumed. A small dose of nicotine acts faster
than a dose of heroin, creating a need for smoking, as well as eating is a necessity to satisfy
hunger, so the smoker is smoking to satisfy this need and smoking becomes part of their daily
life.
Conducted a survey about the consumption of tobacco, a certain number of people who
were also asked the reason why they smoke, they responded as follows: because they like it,
because it relaxes, because they reduce the stress, because it helps them focus because it
distracts, to socialize, to improve their mood, but very few answered the real reason, by
addiction.

Instructor: Marco Rodriguez

Why Do You Smoke?

Like it

Relaxes

Reduces stress

Helps to focus

Socialize

Improve the mood

By adiction

Other

Helps to distract

The majority of smokers began at the age of adolescence because they wanted to be more
adults or to be well with friends, but others were caught by different sources such as the brain
washing through marketing. Remember to a famous actor making a commercial or in a movie
where he appears sailing in a boat enjoying the air and the view, smoking a cigarette; it may be
that after watching the movie or the commercial, the first thing that the spectator makes is to go
to the patio or to the front of his house and smoke a cigarette, there already he was hooked.
In other cases a person who is among friends who are smoking, and then offer him a
cigarette and even though the person initially refused it, at the end it is convinced smoking only
one, this is the social pressure which insist and insist until the person finally gives up.
There is a very pleasant monetary heritage but there is also a habit heritage. There are
smokers that began smoking under the influence of their parents; this does not mean that the
parents gave them the cigarette to their children in their hands (literally), but indirectly made
them become addicted to nicotine too, because the parents smoked in front of their children, who
absorb the smoke causing this addiction. Children see parents as examples and as certain parents

Instructor: Marco Rodriguez

smoke, the children when they grow so do in most of the cases following with the bad habit or
addiction that parents left him as inheritance.
The lack of information is also a cause of why people smoke. In certain ads, is not
published the side effects that some products might have on the consumer, in this case the
electronic cigar. It all starts when people smoke without knowing that electronic cigars are also
a cause of addiction because they also contain nicotine.
Other interesting cases of why people smoke is by self-medication. When a person is in a
state of stress, anxiety or depression by the economy or personal problems, because they do not
have a job or that job is not providing enough money to cover the cost of their family or other
situations, as well as some people come to alcohol or drugs. Others use the cigar as a stress
reliever because nicotine releases a series of chemicals that flow through the nervous system
until they reach the brain, causing some relief to the situation of the people.
Other people consume tobacco to control their weight, because nicotine reduces the
appetite of the person who consumes it.
It does not matter the excuses that smokers give of why they smoke, the only main reason
of the addiction is nicotine.
What is the economic cost of tobacco consumption?
A pack of 20 cigarettes can cost consumers as much as $1056, including federal and state
excise taxes, in addition some cost of smoking-related illness.

Instructor: Marco Rodriguez

The majority of smokers know that keeping the addiction to tobacco is very expensive
and obviously smokers can afford it, but they do not know the loss of money that have over the
long term by maintaining this addiction.
Assuming that a person consumes half a pack of cigarettes a day, 3.5 packs a week, the
pack of cigarettes costs $1056 each and the year has 52 weeks, the expense of a person in cigars
a year is $1,921.92 approximately, this amount does not include medical expenses caused by
smoking. For every pack of cigarettes that the smoker purchases, it requires $35 for healthrelated expenses. This means that the smoker needs about $6, 370 per year for his/her health-care
expenses.
It is not only the expenses that a smoker has for consuming tobacco, but the costs of
medical care in most of the times the smoker does not cover, or if the smoker dies and the cost
for his/her attention is without pay, it causes expenses to the Government of the United States
that becomes economy loss.

Instructor: Marco Rodriguez

The cost for the attention to diseases of smokers is $ 50 billion a year. This amount
represents expenditure estimated in 1993. Of this amount, public services with Medicare and
Medicaid cover the 40% which is about $20 billion a year.
On one occasion, a smoker is shared to a colleague that he had a problem with the
payment of his house, and that he had to give a certain amount in a period of three weeks; the
smoker had been two weeks ago at the hospital by tobacco health-related and that was another
expense that he had to pay. The coworker recommended him to stop smoking, it was causing
many debts in his home, in hospitals and medicines; what was surprising was that they did an
estimate of expenses of what they could save in a month without him and neither his wife
consuming tobacco. The cost of them in cigarettes for one month was approximately $450,
which was the amount of 60 percent of their monthly payment of their home.
There are many examples such the previous one in which people are involved in expenses
that cannot afford, but instead of quitting smoking in order to use the money on something that
would benefit them, they prefer to sink more in the depression or to sacrify the money they had
allocated for other needs.
What are the health effects of smoking?
The smoking either in a normal condition (let us name it normal being a man or a woman
who is not pregnant) or in pregnancy and breathing smoke smoking or second hand, cause many
chronic diseases such as lung cancer, pulmonary emphysema, high blood pressure, and other
forms of cancer and diseases of the body in general.
First, replace the cigarette by some other product such as the electronic cigarette or pipes,
are not going to reduce or avoid that smokers have health risks. There is no safe way of smoking,
Instructor: Marco Rodriguez

because in addition to nicotine, there are many chemicals that are contained in the tobacco
products.
According to the American Lung Association, the cigarette contains about 600
ingredients which when burned generate more than 7,000 chemicals, of which at least 69 of them
are poisonous and can cause cancer.
Smoking diseases are the main cause of premature death in the United States, and the
morality figures is three times larger in people who smoke than in people who do not smoke; this
according to the Center for Wanted Control and Prevention. Some of the health problems that can
face the person who smokes are associated with:
- The immune system is the way in which the body protects itself from infection and
disease, therefore, the smoking causes certain problems in this which diminishes the
ability of protect itself from diseases such as: Chrohn's disease, rheumatoid arthritis
and/or type 2 diabetes.
- The heart is damaged due to tobacco consumption causing coronary heart disease which is
the blockage of the arteries around the heart, heart attack damaging the arteries,
aneurysms which full of more blood vessels, causing them to break causing death,
- Perophetal arterial disease carried through the arteries expanding to all organs,
- Stroke caused by blood cloths
- The blood is affected in the same way because it increases its pressure, and has changes in
its chemistry, and thickened blood vessels,
- The macular degeneration view suffers from, optic nerve damage and blindness,
Instructor: Marco Rodriguez

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- In the bones, causing osteoporosis or bone loss, and

- In the lungs, causing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, emphysema, chronic
bronchitis, pneumonia, asthma and/or tuberculosis.
- Smoking also causes bad breath, dry out the skin, fingers are yellow, premature aging,
stain the teeth, it inhibits the taste buds and the color of the gums become of color purple.
There are more diseases caused by tobacco consumption, and that is why the smoking is
the main death in the United States.
Many people who smoke or who do not smoke are the question of whether in smoking
causes cancer, through the years we have been able to see that the smoking if you cause of
cancer. Some people believe that smoking can cause only cancer of the lungs, but what is certain
is that thanks to all of those chemicals that are released from the cigarette when burning,
approximately 69 chemicals of them, causing a considerable amount of cancer, such as: lungs,
trachea, esophagus, bronchus, oral cavity, lip, nasopharynx, nasal cavity, larynx, stomach,
bladder, pancreas, kidney, liver, uterine cervix, colon, rectum and leukemia.
Smoking during pregnancy is double damage, since not only one person is affected, but
also the fetus is being damaged. When a pregnant person smokes, the consequences are greater
for the baby that is on the way, causing certain diseases and/or altering the process of pregnancy
thanks to the terrible substances brought through the blood directly to the baby including the
carbon monoxide.
The baby who has been exposed to substances of tobacco during gestation may have
some or all of the following problems during its development, and after his birth:

Instructor: Marco Rodriguez

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- The loss of the unexpected pregnancy is very common in the first trimester of
pregnancy and in their majority by the use of tobacco, this is called stillbirth.
- The utopian pregnancy is when the fertilized egg does not arrive to the array, but that is
embedded in the fallopian tubes, begun to develop their pregnancy, that in this case the
embryo has to be removed because there is no possibility that this can be develop well.
- The placenta abruption, which causes a severe hemorrhage putting not so much the risk
of the fetus, but also that of the mother. Take into consideration that the placenta is a the
structure where the fetus is provided with oxygen and all the nutrients that a fetus
requires for a healthy development.
- Premature birth is in which health risks such as: visual impairment or auditory, mental
problems, learning and/or behavior, and other complications that can lead to the baby to
death.
-Having low birth weight which leads to health problems and other disabilities
- Birth defects such as cleft lip and palate.
The second hand-smoking are the people who do not smoke, but they breathe smoke
released by the cigarette or breathed by the person smoking. It is not necessary that pregnant
women smoke to have these problems, but to be exposed to cigarette smoke expelled by
smoking, it can also put them in these risks.
According to the American Lung Association, the second hand-smoking causes around
41,000 deaths per year. Of which, 7,300 are deaths caused by lung cancer, and 33,700 deaths
from diseases related to the heart. The second-hand smokers get the smoke in their jobs as
Instructor: Marco Rodriguez

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casinos, bars, or in a meeting with friends or relatives, and children through their parents, and
other places.
When breathing tobacco smoke also changes the chemistry of the blood and begins to
damage the arteries also increasing blood pressure and causing heart attacks. This also causes
coronary heart disease; stroke and lung cancer in adults and in children can cause asthma,
respiratory and ear infections, and even the infant death syndrome.
Many smokers know how dangerous it is smoking, but due to their addiction to nicotine,
and to get the pleasure of the effects they experience when smoking, in most of the times the
smokers do not want to stop smoking without caring about the consequences that this will cause
and even the costs that these cause them. Others take awareness of the danger and of the damage
that smoking is causing them and try and/or take the decision to quit smoking.
What are the health benefits of quitting tobacco use?
The benefits of quitting are reflected directly in the health and the finances of the person
who has decided to stop smoking.
As soon as the person quits smoking, the person is beneficiated in their physical and
psychological well-being because it frees the person from the slavery of the addiction to nicotine,
stops to feel fear or relaxes the nerves, retrieves the confidence in oneself and the courage, enjoy
the delicious flavors of the food, has a better relationship and/or communication with people at
work and with the family, and even save money.
As well as the nicotine takes action quickly in the organs of the body of the smoker when
it starts to smoke, the body starts to recover fast when the person stops smoking, because within

Instructor: Marco Rodriguez

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the first few hours after quitting, heart rate is returning to normal speed, and the carbon
monoxide levels are reduced in the blood.
The lungs begin to take force and within two to three months of quitting will reduce the
chances of acquiring pulmonary emphysema and even reduce the possibilities of lung cancer, and
the risk of a heart attack begin to reduce.
People who quit smoking live more than the people who continue smoking, because
within the first 9 months, cough and shortness of breath are reduced, improving the way of
breathing and even taking a breath when speaking. After a year the risk of coronary heart disease
drops to half, but it was not until in 15 years that the risk is the same as a non-smoker. As well as
the risk of acquiring cancer of the mouth, throat, cervical, larynx, kidney, or pancreas is reduced
considerably.
When a person stops smoking, it also removes the unpleasant smell of smoke which was
soaked in your clothes and hair, giving a better appearance even to their skin and face to the
other people who do not smoke, improving this way the relationship with them, because there
would be no concern of its appearance.
In addition to improving their health and physical appearance, to people who quit
smoking they improve their sense of smell and taste, in such a way that enjoy the true flavor of
the gastronomy. Because quitting smoking improves the circulation of the blood throughout the
body, people who quit smoking may experience a better sex life.
The debts that the smoker had before quitting smoking could be worrying for him, but at
the time of quitting, began to save and these concerns begin to disappear because the money that
was used to purchase the cigarettes, can now be used to pay debts, to hang around, to enjoy with
Instructor: Marco Rodriguez

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the family, or put it to a savings account at a bank; basically to give a better use the money
coming to save about $2,000 a year if this consumed 3.5 packets of cigarettes a week.
Conclusion
As a summary, people consume tobacco by addiction to nicotine, which is the main
ingredient of tobacco; the economic cost of tobacco consumption can oscillate in the $2,000 a
year without including medical expenses by diseases related to their consumption; and the health
effects of the consumption of this are the bad smell, and even death; but the benefits of quitting
are very encouraging because they provide a physical and economic welfare. That is why it is
important that the people are informed of the effects of tobacco consumption, as well as of the
benefits that has the stop smoking, because in this way they can encourage smokers to quit
smoking, and at the same time avoid falling into this addiction.

Instructor: Marco Rodriguez

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Instructor: Marco Rodriguez