Tobacco

Products such as cigarettes, cigars, pipe tobacco, chewing tobacco, and wet and dry snuff contain dried leaves from the tobacco plant. The main chemical in tobacco is nicotine, which is a stimulant drug that speeds up the messages travelling between the brain and body. Tar and carbon monoxide (a toxic gas) are also released when tobacco is burned, such as when it’s smoked. Electronic cigarettes (also known as E cigarettes) don’t contain dried tobacco leaves, but they may still contain nicotine.

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Common Names

  • Ciggies
  • Darts
  • Rollies
  • Smokes
  • Fags
  • Butts
  • Cancer Sticks

How is it used?

Tobacco is usually smoked in cigarettes. It is also smoked in cigars and pipes.

Smoking

Wrong Assumptions

Some people believe that smoking ‘light’ or ‘low tar’ cigarettes is less harmful than regular cigarettes. However, there is little difference between the amount of chemicals inhaled by people who smoke ‘light’ cigarettes and those who smoke regular ones.

Passive Smoking

Passive smoking is when someone breathes in smoke from other people smoking. Passive smoking can cause many of the health problems listed above, so it’s important not to smoke near other people, particularly babies, children, pregnant and breastfeeding women, and people with chronic respiratory conditions.

Side Effects of
Tobacco

There is no safe level of drug use. Use of any drug always carries risk.

The effects of using Tobacco with other drugs including over-the-counter or prescribed medications can be unpredictable and dangerous.

Tobacco affects everyone differently, based on:

  • A person’s size, weight and health
  • Whether the person is used to taking it
  • Whether other drugs are taken around the same time
  • The amount taken
  • The strength of the tobacco and how much is contained in the product

The following effects may be experienced:

  • Feeling more alert, happy and relaxed
  • Coughing
  • Dizziness, headaches
  • Fast heart beat
  • Bad breath
  • Tingling and numbness in fingers and toes
  • Reduced appetite, stomach cramps and vomiting
If a large amount of tobacco is taken the following effects may also be experienced:
  • Confusion
  • Feeling faint
  • Seizures
  • Fast breathing
  • Respiratory arrest (stop breathing) and death.

Long-term effects:

Regular use of tobacco may eventually cause:
  • Shortness of breath
  • Coughing fits, asthma and lung diseases
  • Regular colds or flu
  • Loss of taste and smell
  • Yellow, rotting teeth
  • Yellow finger tips
  • Early wrinkles
  • Back pain
  • Slower-healing wounds
  • Mood swings
  • Eye disease and hearing loss
  • Stomach ulcers
  • Difficulty having children (males and females)
  • Irregular periods and early menopause (females)
  • Difficulty getting an erection (males)
  • Cancer (in many areas of the body)
  • Stroke and brain damage
  • Heart attack and disease
  • Needing to use more to get the same effect
  • Dependence on tobacco
  • Financial, work and social problems

TOBACCO + BENZODIAZEPINES

Reduced effectiveness of benzodiazepines.

TOBACCO + CONTRACEPTIVE PILL

Increased risk of blood clots forming.

Mixing Tobacco with other Drugs