Drug abuse - Nicotine

Introduction

It is a widely known fact that tobacco is used by a large number of people everywhere around the world, and it affects almost one third of the entire popularity of the planet. It is among the largest preventable causes of premature death and morbidity in the United States. Most people who smoke usually develop the habit during their adolescence or sometimes even earlier childhood. When perceived globally, the smoking rates are actually declining, which is a good thing, but in the States, the adolescents are gradually increasing the rate of this harmful habit, especially since 1987. The use of smokeless tobacco is also terrifyingly increased over the past two decades. Another problem with adolescent smokers is that they often continue smoking into their adulthood and quite often they end up abusing alcoholic beverages and various types of illicit substances. Smoking can damage the cells in the lungs and the risk of development of lung cancer is much higher than in those who do not smoke. An interesting fact is that female persons suffer from a much higher risk of lung cancer than the male adolescent smokers.

Pathophysiology

For those who do not know, the nicotine from the inhaled cigarette smoke gets to the brain rather rapidly as it does not take more than 15 seconds. When the nicotine reaches the brain it actually activates certain types of receptors called the nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, which are responsible for releasing dopamine. The troubling fact is that the daily use of tobacco in schools all around the United States is actually quite alarming since there are more than 5 million smokers from the age group of 12-17 years old. There are also half a million smokers who are between 8 and 11 eleven years old, which is quite a shocking fact. Another interesting fact is that there are much more adolescent smokers who live in the rural areas than those who live in urban areas of the country. On a global level, the situation is a bit better, as there is one third of the world’s population who uses tobacco products. Men use tobacco products much more than women, but the situation is a bit different in developed countries, where the percentage of women who use tobacco products is slightly higher. Numerous scientific studies have all unfortunately confirmed that the tobacco products will be the world’s leading cause of morbidity by2030.