9781422272275

Smoking and vaping addiction

CIGARETTES AND TOBACCO PRODUCTS The Predatory Drug DEADLY VAPING ADDITIVES CBD, THC, and Contaminants FACTS AND FIGURES Smoking and Vaping NICOTINE ADVERTISING AND SALES Big Business for Young Clientele NICOTINE AND GENETICS The Hereditary Predisposition NICOTINE TREATMENTS Fighting to Breathe Again NICOTINE Negative Effects on the Adolescent Brain PEER PRESSURE TO SMOKE OR VAPE Finding the Strength in You VAPING The New Cool Way to a Shorter Life

ERIC BENAC

MASON CREST PH I LADELPH I A | MI AMI

PO Box 221876, Hollywood, FL 33022 (866) MCP-BOOK (toll-free) • www.masoncrest.com

Copyright © 2022 by Mason Crest, an imprint of National Highlights, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Printed in the United States of America First printing 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Series ISBN: 978-1-4222-4579-8 Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4222-4580-4 ebook ISBN: 978-1-4222-7227-5 Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file with the Library of Congress

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1: The Popularity of Cigarettes

and Other Tobacco Products............................ 7 Chapter 2: How Nicotine Addiction Develops....................23 Chapter 3: Long-Term Effects of Nicotine..........................37 Chapter 4: How Tobacco Companies Target Young People. ...............................................53 Chapter 5: Treating Nicotine Addiction. ...........................71 Chapter Notes ............................................................................ 85 Series Glossary of Key Terms ................................................... 88 Further Reading . ....................................................................... 90 Internet Resources .................................................................... 91 Index . .......................................................................................... 92 Author’s Biography / Credits . .................................................. 96 KEY ICONS TO LOOK FOR: Words to Understand: These words with their easy-to-understand definitions will increase the reader’s understanding of the text while building vocabulary skills. Sidebars: This boxed material within the main text allows readers to build knowledge, gain insights, explore possibilities, and broaden their perspectives by weaving together additional information to provide realistic and holistic perspectives. Educational videos: Readers can view videos by scanning our QR codes, providing them with additional educational content to supplement the text. Examples include news coverage, moments in history, speeches, iconic sports moments, and much more! Text-Dependent Questions: These questions send the reader back to the text for more careful attention to the evidence presented there. Research Projects: Readers are pointed toward areas of further inquiry connected to each chapter. Suggestions are provided for projects that encourage deeper research and analysis. Series Glossary of Key Terms: This back-of-the-book glossary contains terminology used throughout this series. Words found here increase the reader’s ability to read and comprehend higher-level books and articles in this field.

A farmer harvests tobacco leaves, which can be smoked, chewed, or sniffed to release an addictive drug called nicotine.

WORDS TO UNDERSTAND

cessation: discontinuing something, such as smoking or using smokeless tobacco debunked: an idea that has been proven to be inaccurate or incorrect disparity: a significant difference between two or more items fashionableness: the popularity of a product such as clothes, video games, music, shoes, drugs, or other substances spittoon: a pot or bowl used to collect spit tobacco juice in public places. They are rarely seen today

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Cigarettes and Tobacco Products: The Predatory Drug

1 CHAPTER

The Popularity of Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Nicotine is a natural chemical derived from the leaves of the tobacco plant. For thousands of years, people have used nicotine as a drug, ingesting it either by smoking dried tobacco leaves, chewing the leaves, or even snorting the powder made from dried leaves. Until the twentieth century, tobacco was considered a beneficial substance that helped people’s health in many ways. Sadly, people today know that this perception is cruelly mistaken. Over the last ninety years, the dangerously addictive nature of nicotine has been conclusively proven in study after study. The adverse health effects of using tobacco have also been clearly demonstrated. Yet, despite this proof, millions of people still purchase cigarettes, chewing tobacco, cigars, and other tobacco products every day. Some of these users are teenagers, who are just beginning a lifelong nicotine addiction.

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Cigarette Popularity Remains High Cigarettes remain the most popular tobacco product on the market, and tobacco companies earn billions of dollars every year from their sale. This popularity remains high even though manufacturers are required to print warnings on every pack that explain the dangers of smoking. That said, the fashionableness of cigarette smoking has declined slightly in the face of the growing popularity of vaping. A recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that the percentage of young people who smoke decreased from 20.9 percent in 2005 to 15.5 percent in 2016. That leaves around 38 million people in the United States smoking cigarettes either every day or on some days. Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean that tobacco and nicotine use has declined. If anything, nicotine use has probably increased. Many individuals who once smoked cigarettes (or young people who likely would have started smoking) have instead turned to the use of electronic nicotine-delivery systems, also known as e-cigarettes. These products are marketed as cessation tools that can help people quit using cancer-causing cigarettes, but by providing nicotine they serve as an alternate form of addiction. Experts estimate that 55 million adults will use e-cigarettes or other vaping devices by 2021—nearly 20 million more than the number who currently smoke cigarettes. Breaking down the statistics even further reveals more problematic concerns—even when the data on cigarette smoking appears to be positive. For example, between 2005 and 2016 the average number of cigarettes smoked daily in the United States dropped from seventeen to fourteen, while the percentage of the US population who smoked fewer than ten cigarettes per day rose from 16.4 percent to 25 percent. Those should be good trends, but CDC research indicates that the decline is not because fewer people are

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Cigarettes and Tobacco Products: The Predatory Drug

Tobacco leaves dry in a shed so they can be processed into cigarettes, smokeless tobacco, and other products. Farms in the United States harvest around 500 million pounds of tobacco each year.

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The Popularity of Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products

using tobacco products, but because many smokers have switched over to e-cigarettes. The decline in cigarette smoking is not reflected evenly across the entire US population, either. Tobacco use has always varied, depending on a person’s gender, race, socioeconomic status, and other factors. “The bad news is that cigarette smoking is not declining at the same rate among all population groups,” says Dr. Brian King of the CDC. “Addressing these disparities with evidence-based interventions is critical to continue the progress we’ve made in reducing the overall smoking rate.” For example, men remain more likely to smoke (15.8 percent) than women (12.2 percent), while those between the ages of forty- five and sixty-four were more likely to smoke (16.5 percent) than those between the ages of twenty-five and forty-four (16.1 percent) or eighteen to twenty-four (10.4 percent). The sharpest decline by age groups is in the millennial range, though most of these nicotine-using individuals are vaping instead of smoking. Cigarette use also varies heavily by race: in the United States, nearly 25 percent of Native Americans smoke, versus 15 percent of African Americans and Caucasians, 10 percent of Hispanic individuals, and just over 7 percent of Asians. The reasons for these disparities are unclear, though researchers have noted similar patterns of tobacco use among the various American racial and ethnic groups for decades. Additionally, cigarette use varies heavily based on education and income. For example, nearly 37 percent of those whose highest education is a General Equivalency Diploma (GED) smoke cigarettes, while only 4 percent of Americans who have a graduate degree (a master’s degree or higher) smoke cigarettes. In households with an annual income of less than $35,000, the prevalence of tobacco use is at 21 percent; in households with an annual income of over $100,000, the rate is 8 percent.

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Cigarettes and Tobacco Products: The Predatory Drug

Although cigarette use in the United States has declined over the past two decades, about 250 billion cigarettes are produced and sold in the US each year.

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The Popularity of Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products

Smokeless Tobacco Use Is a Persistent Problem

The term “smokeless tobacco” encompasses a variety of different products, including chewing tobacco and snuff. Chewing tobacco includes cut-up pieces of tobacco leaves, which are often sold in a can or pouch that can easily be carried in a pocket. Users place a portion of the tobacco product (a “pinch,” “wad,” or “dip”) in their mouth, often holding the product in the cheek or between the teeth and gums. In spite of its name, chewing tobacco doesn’t need to be chewed. Instead, saliva will naturally break down the tobacco and produce a persistent flow of nicotine that is absorbed into their bloodstream frommembranes within the mouth. Chewing tobacco users must periodically spit out the tobacco juice. Spittoons were once used for this purpose, though today most users use empty soda cans or whatever else they can find. Snuff consists of finely powdered tobacco leaves. At one time, aristocrats in Europe and America would inhale small amounts of snuff through their nose to receive the effects of the nicotine. Today, however, snuff is usually sold in small packets that look a little like tea bags, and the user holds a packet in his or her mouth to receive the effect. The effect is similar to chewing tobacco, though not quite as messy, although users still must regularly spit out the juice. While smokeless tobacco has never been as popular as cigarettes, its popularity has remained fairly steady, while cigarette use has declined. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that today about 3 percent of the US adult population currently uses chewing tobacco on a regular basis. The gender divide is very high when it comes to smokeless tobacco use. The CDC reports that about 7 percent of the male population of

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Cigarettes and Tobacco Products: The Predatory Drug

the US regularly uses chewing tobacco, while less than 1 percent of the female population does. As a result, advertisements for chewing tobacco often focus on “rugged” or “masculine” themes, in an attempt to appeal to working-class men or young adults. Rural areas typically experience higher rates of smokeless tobacco use. Wyoming has the highest rate, with nearly 10 percent of the population using chew. Other rural states, like Montana and Arkansas, also have very high rates of use (nearly 8 percent). By contrast, urban areas of the country, like the District of Columbia (1.3 percent), Maryland (1.6 percent), and California (1.7 percent) have consistently low levels of smokeless tobacco use.

Finely ground “snuff” tobacco is available as a loose grainy substance, or packed into small bags that can be held in the mouth with less mess.

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The Popularity of Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products

Smokeless tobacco use rates also vary, depending on race. For example, less than 0.5 percent of the Asian population uses smokeless tobacco, while nearly 9 percent of the Native American population uses chewing tobacco. Caucasians use smokeless tobacco at a relatively high rate (5 percent) compared to the rest of the US population as a whole (less than 1 percent). Cigars Are Growing in Popularity As cigarette use decreases, cigar use seems to be rising. The CDC found that cigar use remained consistently popular during the period from 2005 to 2016. In fact, small cigars called cigarillos were smoked at a level consistent with that of cigarettes ( just under 17 percent), with about 23 percent of all male high-school seniors smoking cigars. About 13 percent of all high-school students smoked cigars of some type. During this period, cigar sales in the United States increased by 114 percent, from six billion cigars per year in 2005 to about 13 billion cigars in 2016.

PIPE TOBACCO: A POTENT DANGER.

Although pipe tobacco is nowhere near as popular as other types, there remains an allure with this type of tobacco use. For example, British comedian Graham Chapman started smoking a pipe while in college, thinking it would make him look more intelligent. Unfortunately, Chapman developed a lifelong addiction that claimed his life when he was in his late forties. Pipe tobacco is just as likely to cause cancer, heart conditions, dental disease, and other dangerous health problems as other forms of tobacco.

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Cigarettes and Tobacco Products: The Predatory Drug

At one time, tobacco companies would pay farmers to advertise their products on the sides of their barns.

This use rate has increased due to a few different factors. For example, cigars are currently not regulated by US laws and by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the same way that cigarettes are. As a result, cigar manufacturers can add various sweet or fruity flavors to their products that may appeal to young people, enticing them to smoke at an earlier age. And since cigars are not taxed as heavily as cigarettes, they are often cheaper, which makes them appealing to people with limited incomes, including many teenagers. Newer flavored cigar products are often smaller than classic cigars, and sometimes include filters, which leads many anti-smoking activists to complain that they are merely cigarettes in disguise.

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The Popularity of Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products

Lucky Strike is a cigarette brand owned by British American Tobacco, the world’s largest tobacco company with nearly $25 billion in annual sales.

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Cigarettes and Tobacco Products: The Predatory Drug