Tagged: cigarette
Addiction Annulled: A Brief Background on Cigarette Cessation
Tobacco use is widely considered to cause more preventable and premature deaths than any other factor in developed countries. In other words, a successful campaign against tobacco use would arguably save more lives globally than any other campaign for public health.
There are many different ways of consuming tobacco, but for the purposes of this paper only cigarette smoking will be discussed and will be referred to simply as “smoking.” It is well known that smoking causes a variety of serious negative health effects; all one has to do is look at the warning label on a box of cigarettes. Why then, in spite of the obvious dangers, do so many people continue to smoke? One reason is simply because smoking looks cool, mainly due to its glorification in popular culture. In a more recent phenomenon, it seems that lower numbers of smokers in the population have given smoking a unique, hipster image. While an important one, image is not the only factor preserving smoking’s popularity; the main factor can only be fully understood through neuroscience. It is a specific process occurring within the brain called addiction, or more technically drug dependence.
