HOW DANGEROUS IS SMOKING FOR YOUR HEALTH Research Paper

HOW DANGEROUS IS SMOKING FOR YOUR HEALTH - Research Paper Example Further, it would be interesting to find out how the hot vapor containing fine particles of carbon directly and specifically affect human organs. Its implications to health would also be analyzed through the illnesses and diseases it inflicts. And finally, when people have realized the health hazards of smoking, this essay would explore ways and means to prevent and ultimately stop smoking. Historians traced the origins of smoking from the Mayan Indians of Mexico from as early as the 600 to 900 A.D. (Glantz 1) Tobacco, being the original source for a smoke, was grown as a cash crop in 1612 where the settlers of the first American colony in Jamestown, Virginia started cultivating and growing them. (Glantz 2). By 1800s, historians revealed that people started using tobaccos for various purposes such as: for chewing, smoking in a pipe, hand-rolled as a cigar or cigarette. According to Glantz, â€Å"the first commercial cigarettes were made in 1865 by Washington Duke on his 300-acre farm in Raleigh, North Carolina. His hand-rolled cigarettes were sold to soldiers at the end of the Civil War.† (Glantz 3). The invention of the cigarette making machine in 1881 by James Bonsack paved the way for the widespread production of cigarettes. His partnership with Washington Dukes son, James "Buck" Duke, initiated the establishment of the first tobacco company in the US, the American Tobacco Company. (Glantz 4) Tobacco, is first and foremost, the main ingredient in a cigarette. Tobacco is a leafy green plant widely grown in warm climates. In the planting phase alone, tobacco is already bombarded with chemicals, fertilizers and insecticides to ensure that the plant grows free from insects. In the manufacturing process, the chemicals are added for flavors and to make them combustible. Jacobs averred that â€Å"there are over 4,000 chemicals in cigarettes. 51 of them are known to be carcinogenic. A carcinogen