Drug Index

Tobacco

Tabacoo is shredded dried leaves of the tobacco plant. Can be chewed or smoked in cigarettes, cigars or piped. Two or three drops of nicotine, the plant’s most potent ingredient, will rapidly kill an adult. Tar and nicotine content of cigarettes in Canada is printed on each package preceded by warning that smoking is dangerous to user's health. Another hazardous substance in cigarette smoke is carbon monoxide. In all, a lighted cigarette generates 4,000 different chemical compounds.

Medical Uses

Discovered among Northern and Central American tribes during 16th century. No current medical use.

Short Term Effects

Effect include increased heart rate and blood pressure drop in skin temperature, faster breathing, decreased appetite. First-time smoker feels dizzy and energized, may experience diarrhea and vomiting. Tar accumulates in the lungs. Inhaling smokers subject themselves to very high carbon monoxide levels. They also subject people around them to the same thing. A single cigarette puts less than 1mg of nicotine into blood stream, but actually contains 15-20 mg. When eaten nicotine is absorbed slowly in stomach, which is why small children sometimes survive after eating cigarettes.

Long Term Effects

Tar causes cancer, and in one year nearly 113.4g of it is deposited in lungs of pack-a-day smokers of regular cigarettes. Much of this is coughed up in phlegm. Other possible effects include cancer of the lungs, moth and throat, respiratory disease, blockages of blood vessels, stomach ulcers. Smoking narrows blood vessels, depletes Vitamin C levels, causes skin wounds to heal less quickly and reduces immunity to disease. Research indicates that each cigarette cuts 5.5 minutes from smoker's lifespan. The babies of women who smoke tend to weigh less at birth than those of non smokers; the risk of prematurity miscarriage and stillbirth is greater. Studies suggest that the mother's smoking can have a detrimental effect on the child's growth, intellectual development and behaviour.

Tolerance and Dependance

Most smokers are physically and psychologically dependent on tobacco. Those who quit generally achieve same health levels as non-smokers after a few years, although some damage may not be completely reversible.

Legal Status

The Federal Tobacco Act sets 18 as the minimum age at which retailers may furnish tobacco products to youth. Some provinces, notably Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Ontario and British Columbia, have set this age limit at 19. In addition, because it can harm the non-smoker in a variety of ways, from irritation to death, many municipalities are provinces have enacted by-laws that restrict or ban smoking in public places, including restaurants and bars. At the federal level, the Non-Smokers' Health Act bans smoking in all federally-regulated workplaces and bans smoking on trains, planes, buses and ships.

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