Nicotine
From Drug Rehab Wiki
Nicotine (pronounced "nik uh teen") is one of 4,000 chemicals found in tobacco. By weight nicotine is 5% of a tobacco leaf. In its purest form, nicotine is a clear oily liquid that turns brown in the light. Nicotine is poisonous in large amounts, and can cause symptoms such as vomiting, nausea, headaches, stomach aches and even death. Sometimes it is used as an insecticide.
Nicotine can act on the human body as both a stimulant and a depressant. When inhaled in short puffs, nicotine is a stimulant, but when smoked in deep drags, nicotine has a tranquilizing effect. Most smokers use it for both effects.
The U.S. government considers nicotine to be as addictive as alcohol, cocaine, and morphine. Although people speak about being addicted to smoking or tobacco, they are actually addicted to nicotine. Nicotine is addictive because it increases dopamine, a chemical related to the desire to consume drugs, and because it activates reward pathways in the human brain.
Nicotine can boost mood and take away depression, and it can stimulate memory and alertness. It also raises blood sugar levels and increases insulin. It steps up your heartbeat by ten to 20 beats a minute, and increases blood pressure and bowel activity. It also decreases appetite. Because these effects make you burn more calories, you might gain weight after you quit using tobacco.
The U.S. government estimates that 443,000 people die prematurely every year from tobacco-related diseases, but this number may go down because fewer people are smoking. Smoking is linked to cancers of the lung, esophagus, larynx, mouth, throat, kidney, bladder, pancreas, stomach, and cervix, as well as acute myeloid leukemia. About one in three cancer deaths are related to smoking. Smokers are at higher risk for heart disease, stroke, pneumonia, aortic aneurysm, chronic bronchitis, emphysema, asthma, hip fractures, and cataracts. Women who smoke when pregnant put their babies at risk for lung problems and low birth weights. Secondhand smoke is also dangerous. Nonsmokers who live with people that smoke increase their risk for lung cancer by 25%.
All this provides incentive to give up smoking, but this can be a difficult process. Smokers and users of smokeless tobacco have to withdraw from nicotine, and this can be unpleasant. Depending on the amount they smoked or used tobacco, they will experience symptoms such as headaches, depression, cravings for tobacco, irritability, difficulty concentrating, anxiety, increased appetite, and weight gain. Many use "nicotine patches" which provides a continuous dose of nicotine that gradually decreases to zero. Other helpful medications are bupropion (Wellbutrin and Zyban), varenicline (Chantix), and antidepressants such as Prozac.
While the number of smokers is decreasing, the number of people using smokeless tobacco products is increasing. Sales of snuff and chewing tobacco tripled between 1986 and 2005. Many users are former cigarette smokers, but studies have shown that 90% of those who turn to smokeless products as a way to quit smoking go back to cigarettes. Smokeless products contain cancer-causing chemicals and increase your risk for cancers of the lip, tongue, cheeks, gums, and mouth.
Many people who abuse other substances such as illegal drugs and alcohol, are also smokers. This may be related to genetic factors that make certain people prone to addictions. Some rehabilitation centers treat both smoking and the other substance dependency at the same time, but one recent study found that about one in three smokers will leave treatment early if asked to go through both treatments at once. People with mental illnesses tend to smoke -- according to government statistics, 90% of adults with schizophrenia are smokers.
