Smoking is a practice in which a substance, most commonly tobacco, is burned and the smoke is tasted or inhaled. This is primarily practised as a route of administration for recreational drug use, as combustion releases the active substances in drugs such as nicotine and makes them available for absorption through the lungs. It can also be done as a part of rituals, to induce trancesand spiritual enlightenment. The most common method of smoking today is through cigarettes, primarily industrially manufactured but also hand-rolled from loose tobacco and rolling paper.
Other smoking implements include pipes, cigars, bidis, hookahs, vaporizers, and bongs. It has been suggested that smoking-related disease kills one half of all long term smokers but these diseases may also be contracted by non-smokers. A 2007 report states that, each year, about 4. 9 million people worldwide die as a result of smoking. Smoking is one of the most common forms of recreational drug use. Tobacco smoking is today by far the most popular form of smoking and is practiced by over one billion people in the majority of all human societies. Less common drugs for smoking include cannabis and opium. Some of the substances are classified as hard narcotics, like heroin, but the use of these is very limited as they are often not commercially available.
Historical Background
The history of smoking dates back to as early as 5000 BC in shamanistic rituals. Many ancient civilizations, such as the Babylonians, Indians and Chinese, burnt incense as a part of religious rituals, as did the Israelites and the later Catholic and Orthodox Christian churches. Smoking in the Americas probably had its origins in the incense-burning ceremonies of shamans but was later adopted for pleasure, or as a social tool.
The smoking of tobacco, as well as various hallucinogenic drugs was used to achieve trances and to come into contact with the spirit world. Substances such as Cannabis, clarified butter (ghee), fish offal, dried snake skins and various pastes molded around incense sticks dates back at least 2000 years. Fumigation (dhupa) and fire offerings (homa) are prescribed in the Ayurveda for medical purposes, and have been practiced for at least 3, 000 years while smoking, dhumrapana (literally “ drinking smoke”), has been practiced for at least 2, 000 years.
Before modern times these substances have been consumed through pipes, with stems of various lengths or chillums. Cannabis smoking was common in the Middle East before the arrival of tobacco, and was early on a common social activity that centered around the type of water pipe called a hookah. Smoking, especially after the introduction of tobacco, was an essential component of Muslim society and culture and became integrated with important traditions such as weddings, funerals and was expressed in architecture, clothing, literature and poetry.
Cannabis smoking was introduced to Sub-Saharan Africa through Ethiopia and the east African coast by either Indian or Arab traders in the 13th century or earlier and spread on the same trade routes as those that carried coffee, which originated in the highlands of Ethiopia. It was smoked in calabash water pipes with terra cotta smoking bowls, apparently an Ethiopian invention which was later conveyed to eastern, southern and central Africa.
Reports from the first European explorers and conquistadors to reach the Americas tell of rituals where native priests smoked themselves into such high degrees of intoxication that it is unlikely that the rituals were limited to just tobacco. In 1612, six years after the settlement of Jamestown, John Rolfe was credited as the first settler to successfully raise tobacco as a cash crop. The demand quickly grew as tobacco, referred to as “ golden weed”, revived the Virginia join stock company from its failed gold expeditions. [8] In order to meet demands from the old world, tobacco was grown in succession, quickly depleting the land.
This became a motivator to settle west into the unknown continent, and likewise an expansion of tobacco production. Indentured servitude became the primary labor force up untilBacon’s Rebellion, from which the focus turned to slavery. This trend abated following the American revolution as slavery became regarded as unprofitable. However the practice was revived in 1794 with the invention of the cotton gin. [11] A Frenchman named Jean Nicot (from whose name the word nicotine is derived) introduced tobacco to France in 1560. From France tobacco spread to England.
The first report of a smoking Englishman is of a sailor in Bristol in 1556, seen “ emitting smoke from his nostrils”. [12] Like tea, coffee and opium, tobacco was just one of many intoxicants that was originally used as a form of medicine. Tobacco was introduced around 1600 by French merchants in what today is modern-day Gambia and Senegal. At the same time caravans from Morocco brought tobacco to the areas around Timbuktu and the Portuguese brought the commodity (and the plant) to southern Africa, establishing the popularity of tobacco throughout all of Africa by the 1650s.
Soon after its introduction to the Old World, tobacco came under frequent criticism from state and religious leaders. Murad IV, sultan of the Ottoman Empire 1623-40 was among the first to attempt a smoking ban by claiming it was a threat to public morality and health. The Chinese emperor Chongzhen issued an edict banning smoking two years before his death and the overthrow of the Ming dynasty. Later, the Manchu of the Qing dynasty, who were originally a tribe of nomadic horse warriors, would proclaim smoking “ a more heinous crime than that even of neglecting archery”.
In Edo period Japan, some of the earliest tobacco plantations were scorned by the shogunate as being a threat to the military economy by letting valuable farmland go to waste for the use of a recreational drug instead of being used to plant food crops. Smoking is viewed, by some students, as a way to socialize and take study breaks. Smoking is also correlated with alcohol use among high shool & college students. This is significant because alcohol use is highly prevalent among high school & college students.
Smoking is perceived by some students to aid in social interactions, particularly with potential mates i. e. members of the opposite sex. Tobacco companies use this conception in their advertising. Companies produce ads depicting sexual images of men and women. Smoking after drinking is seen as a method of reorientation and an attempt to reduce feelings of inebriation, though smoking will not reduce blood alcohol levels. College students view smoking while drinking as a more acceptable practice relative to smoking while sober. Students who smoke while inebriated feel less judged by their peers.
Conceptual or Theoritical Framework
Hypothesis
If you are a cigarette smoker, your chances of getting lung cancer increases dramatically. Just being around a smoker can put you at risk as well. Here in the Philippines, 80% of men with a lung cancer death and 60% of women who die from lung cancer are due to smoking. Cigarette smoking kills over 400, 000 people a year, making it “ the largest preventable cause of death and disability in developed countries”(National Cancer Institute, 1).
Smoking increases the risk of coronary heart disease and heart attack to up to five times the normal risk. This occurs as a result of smoke lowering the quantities of antioxidants in the bloodstream, which help to protect the heart. Without antioxidants in the bloodstream, or with lowered amounts, the heart is more prone to disease. Smoking also increases the risk of emphysema and cancer. In addition, it is not only smokers who are affected by smoke. Passive or second hand smokers run the same health risks as smokers just from inhaling other’s cigarettes smoke, including increased risk of heart disease.
Second-hand smoke also has tentative links to diverse ailments such as various cancers, strokes, sudden infant death syndrome, and an increase in the effects of cystic fibrosis and asthma. Cigarette smoking should affect blood pressure and heart rate because nicotine narrows the blood vessels that lead to extremities on the body, forcing the heart to work harder to supply blood to these extremities. This helps to explain why so many smokers are prone to strokes and aneurysms. Although many studies have been done to prove that smoking is dangerous to the health of both smokers and non-smokers, and most smokers will admit that smoking is not a healthy activity, there has not been a significant decline in the number of smokers, with the amount of people who start smoking balancing out the number of smokers who quit smoking or die.
Significance of the study
A young cigarette smoker can begin to feel powerful desires for nicotine within two days of first inhaling, a new study has found, and about half of children who become addicted report symptoms of dependence by the time they are smoking only seven cigarettes a month.
In the 10 percent of children who were most susceptible, cravings began within two days of the first inhalation, and saliva analysis showed that being dependent did not require high blood levels of nicotine throughout the day. In some cases dependence could be diagnosed as early as 13 days after the first smoking episode. For most inhalers, daily smoking was not required to cause withdrawal symptoms. More than 70 percent had cravings that were difficult to control before they were smoking every day. The biochemical analyses confirmed this: the symptoms of dependence began mostly at the lowest levels of nicotine intake.
Students note that smoking cigarettes reduces anxiety, and smoking often occurs after stressful events or in stressful situations. Studies find that depressed college students are more likely to smoke and have a more difficult time quitting than non-depressed college students. 31. 9% of college smokers attribute their smoking behavior as a means to alleviate their depression. Depression is related to lower self-efficacy, and depressed individuals are considered less able to resist smoking during times of low self esteem, which leads to higher reports of smoking among depressed individuals.
Scope and Limitation
Smoking is a very rampant habit among people nowadays, particularly among high school & college students. About 90% of all smokers started as teen smokers. Smoking has a lot of effect to our body and to the behaviour of the smoker as well as to our environment. Scientist has proven that smoking can cause a lot of complications including asthma, lung cancer and stomach cancer. Smoking can also cause improvement in reaction and processing time because nicotine is a psychomotor stimulant and students is using it as a reason to continue smoking. There are many reasons why high school & college student smokes.
Stress is one of the reasons why student smokes. Students are saying that when they smoke they feel relieve in stress and other things that is destructing their mind. Family problem and influence, some are smoking because of what they have seen in their family. Peer pressure, students gets involve into smoking because of their friends teasing them to try smoking and they get addicted to it once they try it. Adolescence is clearly a sensitive time period in the onset of cigarette smoking. They are easily influenced by their environment and most adolescent are not aware of the long term consequence of cigarette smoking.
Adolescent smoking picks no nationality because adolescent smoking thrives in a universal way. Most of the adolescents choose to smoke for the same reason. Adolescents grasp all the accessories of the adulthood and a such smoking is the common adult activity which should be prohibited, but it’s attraction is more intensified. There are no physical reasons to start smoking. The body doesn’t need tobacco the way it needs food, water, sleep, and exercise. In fact, many of the chemicals in cigarettes, like nicotine and cyanide, are actually poisons that can kill in high enough doses.
