The Positive And Negative Effects Of Tobacco

“Tobacco is a filthy weed that from the devil does proceed; it drains your purse, it burns your clothes, and makes a chimney of your nose”. With this statement, Benjamin Waterhouse, a physician, co-founder and professor of Harvard Medical School, recognized how smoking tobacco directly affects the quality and quantity of life. In the past, when Columbus arrived in the Americas, he found the natives using tobacco in much the same manner as it is used today. Tobacco use became popular among European settlers in the 16th century and soon became the chief commodity exchanged by the colonists for European-manufactured articles. Almost 500 years later, tobacco remains a large part of many countries’ culture and today it is widely used, but since it gives a huge negative impact on the quality and quantity of life, tobacco use became a global

According to the bulletin of the World Health Organization there are almost 1 billion male and 250 million female smokers worldwide and every day an estimated 82 000 to 99 000 young people start smoking; many are children under the age of 10 and most reside in low- or middle-income countries, if this trend continues, then tobacco could kill a billion people around the world in this century. Aside from death, smoking tobacco gives of a great number of negative effects in the global community, such as it exacerbates poverty, contributes to world hunger and reduces economic productivity.

Tobacco use and poverty are inextricably linked. In the article of the World Health Organization entitled “Why is tobacco a public health priority?” many studies conducted have shown that in the poorest households in some low- and middle-income countries, more than 10% of total