Is it suicide? According to the Surgeon General's report, tobacco smoke contains over 4,000 chemicals, most of which are poisons. With each puff a smoker is slowly poisoning himself, but yet society continues to smoke. With the increase in public knowledge of the effects of smoking, more people are trying to quit. Only twenty-five out of every one hundred Americans who try to quit smoking through an organized program will remain non-smokers within a year. Why is this? People who are habitual smokers are addicted to more than just the nicotine. The psychological addiction affects the ability to successfully quit smoking. .
Tobacco companies use their advertising to recruit new users in order to maintain their daily sales. By promoting normal daily activities enhanced with cigarettes they hook new users and keep the current users. They promote through billboards, Internet, flyers, magazines and movies. They also promote through idealistic images and fantasies, such as actors, supermodels, beaches, parties and fun activities. They then buy into alcohol producing companies to further promote drug dependant lifestyles. This type of advertising disillusions the younger generation into believing this will promote their social stature. The earlier tobacco companies catch their prey the harder it will be for them to quit smoking in the future. Thus psychologically promoting one's drug dependency.
Cigarette use becomes a habit to addicts. People, who start smoking at a young age and continue to smoke on into their middle ages, have learned to use cigarettes as coping techniques. If they become frustrated or are upset, they feel a cigarette will help them cope, it will calm them down or relax them. For example, if a twelve year old begins to smoke and continues to smoke until he or she is thirty-two or so, by now they have associated smoking with most of their life. A twelve year old does not have much stress in their life, but when they reach their later years and begin to deal with stress, they use cigarettes as a way to deal with these issues.
