Their conclusion was published is the Surgeon General's report in 1964. The report stated that cigarette smoking is a health hazard of sufficient importance in the United States to cause remedial action."" After that report was published smoking declined steadily and has fallen more then 40 percent.
The World Health Organization's expert committee put out the first definition to what addiction means. The definition was a state of periodic and chronic intoxication that is detrimental to the individual and to society, produced by the repeats consumption of a drug. (L'Abate, Farrar, and Serritella) A more current definition is a state of physiological or psychological dependence on a drug liable to have a damaging effect. Addiction to cigarettes is caused by three major components nicotine, tar, and carbon monoxide. .
To most researchers nicotine appears to be the drug responsible for the pharmacologically addictive nature of smoking. (L'Abate, Farrar, Serritella) There are actually two extremes to nicotine. If there is too little nicotine in the system then a person will go through withdrawal symptoms, but if there is too much nicotine in the system then toxic effects will occur. Nicotine changes how the brain and the body function. The net results are somewhat of a paradox: Nicotine can both invigorate and relax a smoker. (www.howstuffworks.com) Nicotine releases adrenaline into the system. Nicotine itself may also block the release of the hormone insulin. Insulin tells the cells to take up excess glucose from the blood. This means that nicotine makes people somewhat hyperglycemic; having more sugar in the blood then is normal. (www.howstuffworks.com) .
Tar is a very controversial topic in cigarettes. Many people have switched to low-tar cigarettes believing that they are better, but studies have shown that the low-tar cigarettes cause deeper lung cancer. It causes deeper cancer because when people smoke the lower-tar cigarettes, they change the way they smoke and they inhale deeper.