In the last twenty or so years, smoking has lost the popularity that it once held for many people in nearly every demographic in the world.Before this time, it seemed as though everyone would light up just about anywhere. You would go into a hospital emergency room and see the doctors and nurses having a cigarette in the lobby with injured and sick patients who were smoking cigarettes as well.Some facts worth noting:
Smoking is the #1 cause of death in America responsible over 400,000 deaths per year.
If you combine poor diet, sedentary lifestyle, and obesity, it will be about 400,000 deaths per year.
Up until very recently, people have had to rely on a variety of nicotine replacement therapies, which have been prescribed by their doctor or sold over the counter
Nicotine gum
The Nicotine Patch
Lozenge
Nasal Spray or inhaler
Anti depressant pills like Wellbutrin which was rebranded and ZybanThe first question you were asked when entering a restaurant was "smoking or no smoking?"Stars smoked on the big screen and on television. There were commercials for every brand of cigarette on themarket. It was commonplace to see even young children lighting up with out a thought given to it.Mothers would have a baby breastfeeding while smoking a cigarette. Smoking was popular and the new rage and everyone was doing it.Target ing children & young adults, the tobacco companies would almost guarantee a long termcustomer that would bring them in a lot of money. Also in the past, many of the advertising campaigns forcigarettes, those who smoked were deemed as heroes. The Marlboro Man was glamorized in those days as a man who enjoyed a quality smoke after a hard day on the range.In more recent times, Joe Camel has become the icon for Camel cigarettes and has a very smooth and cool persona that is aimed at attracting younger more "hip" smokers.This type of marketing has gone along way to keep people interested in smoking and many start smoking before they are even old enough to vote. It is much harder to break a habit that starts when the person is young.Young people have less control over the pleasure sensors that are triggered by nicotine and addiction can be brought on much more swiftly in younger person than in a more mature smoker.By targeting children or young adults, the tobacco companies would almost always guarantee a long term customer that would bring them in a lot of money.These types of advertising are highly immoral and in more current times have been cut back because of the amount of under age children who were beginning to smoke. This became such an epidemic that cigarettes took over marijuana as the main gateway drug.Percentage wise, more children who start smoking at young age also will try alcohol and drugs shortly thereafter. By targeting young people for tobacco, the chances of those young people moving to other drugs and substances greatly increases the earlier they start smoking.In the past thirty years, those who smoked so diligently, starting getting many different forms of cancer and also started dying. It seemed as though those who were smokers were the ones who were most likely to die from cancer.More and more studies were conducted on the effects of tobacco on the body and the damages that cigarette smoking was doing to millions of people all over the world. Suddenly, smoking was not as "cool" as it once was.Smoking has now become increasing less popular and smoking is not allowed in many countries in public places.More and more people are looking for ways to kick the habit and become non-smokers. Studies showed that not only was smoking bad for the smokers, but second hand smoke can hurt those who were not smoking as well.By simply living with a smoker and living with smoke in the home could cause permanent damage and those non smokers would have a higher risk of being a victim of cancer.Smoking was shown as the number source of cancer for smokers and non smokers alike. It was shown that smoking is not healthy and could actually kill those that smoke. Shortly after this, the stop smoking campaigns began and smoking was looked on as dangerous and not a habit to picked up by anyone. Across the world, more and more places have placed bans on smoking in city buildings.Then cities and states started placing bans on where smoking would be allowed. Any public place where people congregated were designated as non smoking and smokers were pushed to the fringe of society for the safety of the non smokers.Nicotine was shown to be one of the most addictive drugs known to man and this made it harder for those who really wanted to quit to be successful at it. Before you knew it, there were many products on the market that would enable people to be able to give up the cigarettes through nicotine replacement.Just like a heroin addict needs methadone to get through the withdrawals, many smokers needed a replacement for the nicotine in order to be successful at dropping the habit.
