Health Effects Of Smoking. Health, Medicine, Nursing Essay (Essay Sample)

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Critical Medical Anthropology of Smoking
Introduction
Humanity has relished the luxury of using tobacco in its various forms, even though, it is not a necessity and millions of dollars are spent every year on this luxury (Shelfer 129). Tobacco, just like salt, is universally consumed by humans in one form or another. Every nation on earth has adopted it, especially in the form of fumes or smoke. Legislators and moralists have tried, in vain, to discourage its use. Governments and corporations, around the earth, have raised large amounts of revenues in its production and trade making it a major player in the economics of the world (Crawford 50). Consumption in countries where it is grown is much larger because it is cheap and often free from taxation.
However, smoking of tobacco poses great danger to human health. Smoking is the world’s number one cause of Preventable deaths (Robson and Salcedo 21). According to the World Health Organization (WHO) it is the only legal drug that kills half of the people who use it in the manufacturers intended way. It is responsible for about seven million deaths yearly, with a further 890,000, who die from second-hand smoke. It is associated with ill-health, disability and death and increased risk of communicable diseases (“Prevalence of Tobacco Smoking” 1).