Nicotine Addiction

"Cigarettes are designed for addiction. The design and contents of tobacco products make them more attractive and addictive than ever before. Cigarettes today deliver nicotine more quickly from the lungs to the heart and brain. The powerful addicting elements of tobacco products affect multiple types of nicotine receptors in the brain. Evidence suggests that psychosocial, biologic, and genetic factors may also play a role in nicotine addiction. Addiction to nicotine changes the chemical balance in the brain and keeps people smoking even when they want to quit. Like heroin or cocaine, nicotine changes the way the brain works and causes people to crave more and more nicotine. These powerful cravings make it hard to think about anything else. Smoking can cause both physical and mental addiction. Cigarette makers have long known that nicotine addiction helps sell their products. The additives and chemicals that tobacco companies put in cigarettes may have helped make them more addictive. Filtered, low-tar, and light cigarettes are every bit as addictive and are no safer than other cigarettes. The evidence indicates that changing cigarette designs over the last five decades has not reduced overall disease risk among smokers and may have hindered prevention and cessation efforts. Many teens who try cigarettes do not know how easy it is to become addicted. Nicotine addiction is so powerful that every day about 1,000 teens become daily smokers, and most current smokers became addicted as teenagers."