Science · Classes 9-10 · Chapter 1 · 1.5-1.6

Tobacco and Drug Addiction.

Why does a cigarette packet carry a frightening picture of lungs and the words “Smoking is like taking poison”? And does “drug” only mean a narcotic? This note follows the book: where the harm happens, why people become addicted, and what can be done to stop it.

1. Tobacco and smoking

Tobacco is made by drying the leaves and branches of the tobacco plant. Dried leaves are cut and wrapped in paper to make cigarettes, biri and churut. Burning these and breathing in the smoke and vapour is called smoking. The nicotine in tobacco stimulates the nerves for a while, but it also harms the body. Smoking brings other toxic chemicals into the body too.

How does the harm happen? Cigarette smoke carries toxic gases, chemicals and narcotics. These lower the oxygen-carrying capacity of haemoglobin in the blood. Sticky substances and hydrocarbons cause many lung diseases, even cancer.

So smokers fall ill more often than others: cancer of the lung, lip, mouth, larynx, throat and urinary bladder, bronchitis, stomach ulcer, and diseases of the heart and blood.

Most lung cancer patients die within about five years, and studies show that smokers live shorter lives. Someone who does not smoke but stays near a smoker and breathes the smoke indirectly is harmed as well.

See for yourself where the harm happens. Add smoke: dirt builds up in the lung and the blood cells carry less oxygen. Try the button for breathing it nearby too.

The book’s Figure 1.06 puts two lungs side by side: a non-smoker’s on the left, a smoker’s on the right. Tap to see.

2. Trying to stop smoking

Smoking is prohibited in buses, trains, open fields, restaurants, offices, hospitals and rail stations. Smoking in public is a punishable offence and there is a law against it. But the law is not enforced. So it must be enforced strictly, with an anti-smoking campaign alongside.

It is mandatory to print horrifying pictures of smoking-related diseases, and the sentence “Smoking is like taking poison” or “Smoking is harmful to health”, on packets of tobacco products. Advertising tobacco is banned. Selling and advertising cigarettes near schools and colleges must be strictly prohibited.

3. Drugs and addiction

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), a drug is a substance which, when taken, changes the normal behaviour of a living being.

A drug is not the same thing as a narcotic, but in everyday speech we call narcotics drugs. If someone keeps taking a drug, a physical and mental relationship with it grows. If it is not taken regularly, physical and mental trouble follows. That is drug addiction, or drug dependence (substance abuse).

The important addictive drugs: opium and opium products, heroin, wine, pethidine, barbiturate, cocaine, bhang, charas, marijuana and LSD. Among them heroin is the most harmful.

4. Why people become addicted

The causes: curiosity, bad company, trying to lift depression, relief from mental stress, wanting to be more active, family feuds and habit. If either parent is addicted, the children may become addicted too.

The symptoms of an addicted person: little interest in food, untidiness, hazy vision and red eyes, indifference to everything and disturbed sleep, laziness and depression, too much sweating, staying away from others, anxiety and tension, poor attention, and taking money or things from home.

The book sorts the causes into two columns: environmental and family. Environmental causes include easy availability of drugs, unemployment, an unsocial environment, leaving school early and a drug business nearby. Family causes include lack of parental control, loneliness, carelessness towards children and detachment from the family. Which goes where?

5. Coming back from addiction

Stopping drug addiction is very hard, because an addicted person knows the damage and still cannot give up. Medical treatment can reduce it, but the addicted person’s own part is important. He or she needs regular treatment in a drug cure centre or hospital, distance from addicted friends, watchful care, mental treatment and some work to do. Addiction cannot be stopped suddenly; the drug is reduced gradually.

What society can do: find those who are addicted and treat them with compassion and without hatred; give the addicted person and the family counselling through trained professionals; and rehabilitate them and bring them back into the normal stream of society.

What the government does: bans taking and selling drugs through strict legal measures, enforced strictly; spreads the harmful effects through government and non-government media. Our country has the Narcotics Control Act.

Now tap each chip to see whether the effort is society’s or the government’s.

6. Check yourself

Three questions in the exam’s style. Start with the first.

Think slowly on the second.

Check the last one.

From tobacco to drugs, the whole note on seven cards.

Source: Science, Classes 9-10 (NCTB), Chapter 1 “Healthy Life, Better Living”, section 1.5-1.6.