8.RP.1.2



**__Science Exit Project__** **By Seth Schneider** __Chemicals in Smoking Tobacco__ Smoking a very popular thing around the United States and the rest of the world, and more than 440,000 smokers in the United States alone are killed a year. The tobacco used in cigarettes, cigars, pipes, etc. has a chemical called nicotine. Nicotine is a very addictive alkaloid. You don’t even have to smoke to get a disease from the tobacco and cigarettes, you just have to be near it and breathe in the secondhand smoke. Secondhand smoke is the smoke that comes from the cigarette, and it is estimated that about 3,000 people a year in the U.S. are killed by lung cancer from secondhand smoke. Nicotine is the most used addictive drug throughout the entire world. It affects the chemistry of the brain. Acetylcholine is a neurotransmitter that transmits information between nerve cells throughout the brain. Once acetylcholine transmits information to a cell, it is released from that cell and goes into a different one by fitting into a receptor. When someone smokes, the nicotine from the cigarette gets into the brain cells, and fits into the acetylcholine receptor. Once the acetylcholine is finished transmitting, it moves onto the next cell. When it moves, the nicotine sticks to it and goes with it. The nicotine can stay attached to it for a long time and blocks out normal information transmissions. Once the nicotine blocks that out, the brain has to create more acetylcholine and more receptor sites so it can transmit correctly still. When a smoker isn’t smoking, they have too much acetylcholine and that’s what makes then jittery, anxious, nervous, etc. Once they smoke, the nicotine goes into their brain and does the same thing over again. It will suppress the nicotine symptoms, and that’s why the smoker thinks smoking is so relaxing. When a smoker tries to quit, it takes a couple weeks for the amount of acetylcholine to get back to the way it was. Some smoker’s brains have changed so much, that it’s almost permanent. This makes quitting smoking really difficult for them. This also may be the reason why people who have stopped smoking for years go right back to smoking all the time again, just after one cigarette. Tobacco doesn’t just have the chemical nicotine, it has many more. Some of them include cardiac poisons, cancer-causing agents, and industrial solvents. All those chemicals can cause heart diseases, strokes, lung diseases, cancer, and birth defects. Smoking can also cause cardiovascular disease, pulmonary disease, and other diseases or health conditions. Smoking tobacco is the leading cause of lung cancer and emphysema. Emphysema is a lung disease that makes you short of breathe a lot. It sometimes can kill you. When smoke enters the air as secondhand smoke, it has many chemicals in it like formaldehyde, arsenic, cyanide, radioactive compounds, benzene, and carbon monoxide. The secondhand smoke can hurt the people that breathe it in. It’s been proven in a study from 1992 that secondhand smoke is a proved human carcinogen that cause 3,000 nonsmoker deaths a year from lung-cancer. (A carcinogen is a substance capable of causing cancer in living tissue.) This report also stated that secondhand smoke has given around 26,000 children asthma and put 15,000 children in the hospital due to respiratory problems. The California Environmental Protection Agency (CEPA) in 1997 stated that secondhand smoke can cause heart disease, SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), retarded fetal growth. CEPA also said that secondhand smoke also linked to cervical cancer and spontaneous abortions. In 1995, people who used to work at tobacco factories stated that the tobacco factories, employees, and owners knew that tobacco had the very addictive drug nicotine in it, and that smoking caused cancer. They have known these facts since the 1960s, but they kept selling tobacco anyways. Stated earlier in the paper, nicotine is the main chemical in tobacco. Nicotine is an extremely addictive, poisonous, colorless, and oily liquid alkaloid. Even though nicotine is colorless, it turns brown when it is exposed to air. It will also give off the smell of tobacco when it is exposed to the air. Nicotine is soluble is water, ether, alcohol, or oil. Nicotine can mess with the nervous system of a human and cause their respiratory system to fail, and sometimes cause a person to become paralyzed. If you put 2 or 3 drops (less than 50mg) of the pure nicotine alkaloid on an adult’s tongue, it can kill them instantly. Most cigarettes only have about 15-20mg of nicotine in them. When you smoke, of that 15-20mg, only about 1mg gets into your bloodstream and into your brain. Nicotine is believed to be the reason that most people are addicted to smoking. Nicotine isn’t just in cigarettes, it is also in certain insecticides that is used on plants. Nicotine can be absorbed through the skin, and some workers who work with the certain insecticides and other workers who work with tobacco, sometimes get poisoned from the nicotine by it going through their skin. Snuff is a smokeless tobacco, but still very addictive like cigarettes. Snuff is mostly made from heavily-bodied grades of dark, fire-cured tobacco leaves. Snuff can either be chewed, or sniffed. It is most commonly chewed though. Even though it is smokeless tobacco, unlike cigarettes, snuff still is tobacco. Tobacco is very addictive and bad for you. It has nicotine in it which is a highly addictive alkaloid that can mess up your brain and nervous system. The smoke from a lit cigarette creates secondhand smoke which someone can breathe in. Some people who breathe in the secondhand smoke or smoke, can get lung cancer, heart disease, and many other disease you wouldn’t want to have.

**__ MLA Sources __**
 * Glantz, Stanton A. "Smoking." Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia. Grolier Online, 2012. Web. 12 Apr. 2012
 * Jaffe, Jerome H., and Murray E. Jarvik. "Smoking and Health." Encyclopedia Americana. Grolier Online, 2012. Web. 28 Apr. 2012.
 * Pascoe, Jean R. "Health." The New Book of Knowledge. Grolier Online, 2012. Web. 29 Apr. 2012
 * Moore, E. L. "Tobacco." Encyclopedia Americana. Grolier Online, 2012. Web. 29 Apr. 2012
 * "Nicotine." Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia. Grolier Online, 2012. Web. 1 May. 2012.
 * Jaffe, Jerome H. "Nicotine." Encyclopedia Americana. Grolier Online, 2012. Web. 30 Apr. 2012.