Avoid the Nicotine Trap. (Unit 3: Tobacco).(don't smoke)

As a teenager, Patricia Henley was a lot like you. She was young and healthy and enjoyed participating in school activities. Then someone offered her a cigarette at a school dance. She smoked that cigarette and then a few more. Before long she was hooked and smoking three packs a day. She kept on smoking for years until she was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1998.

Patricia Henley sued Philip Morris, the maker of the Marlboro cigarettes she smoked, claiming the company had misled her and other smokers about the dangers of smoking. During the trial, company memos revealed that the cigarette company had concealed, suppressed, and failed to disclose information about how harmful and addictive cigarettes are. The company also had aimed its advertising at teenagers because, as an internal memo said: "Today's teenager is tomorrow's potential regular customer, and the overwhelming majority of smokers first begin to smoke while still in their teens."

The jury awarded Patricia Henley $51.5 million dollars in damages, in part because it wanted to send a message to tobacco companies: "Stop lying about your product."

Patricia Henley started smoking before the health hazards of smoking were known to the public. But today we know that smoking kills. More people die in one year from health problems caused by smoking than die from AIDS, alcohol, auto crashes, fires, homicides, illegal drugs, and suicide combined. We know that smoking cigarettes or cigars causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and strokes. We know that using chewing tobacco or snuff causes cancer of the tongue, lips, and mouth.

Given these facts about tobacco, you may wonder: Why do people keep using it? It's about addiction. Tobacco contains nicotine, which is one of the most addictive substances. It's even more powerfully addictive than heroin.

What makes nicotine so addictive? Scientists who study addiction believe that drug addictions of all types are related to a neurotransmitter in the brain called dopamine.

Neurotransmitters carry messages from one nerve cell to another. The messages that dopamine carries are about pleasure and elation--feeling good. Normally, nerve cells release dopamine in moderate amounts and then reabsorb it to use again. In ways that aren't fully understood, nicotine and other addictive drugs produce a "high" by keeping dopamine levels in the brain elevated. These drugs don't just cause a flood of dopamine that is quickly forgotten. The brain memorizes anything related to the original surge of dopamine. Therefore, the sight or smell or touch of things related to the original drug use can trigger a craving for the drug. For example, if the brain learns to associate the activities connected with smoking--such as having a cigarette every day after breakfast--with the pleasures caused by dopamine, eventually just having breakfast would be enough to trigger a craving for a cigarette. That's the habit-forming side of nicotine.