Smoking: ten reasons to turn off the cigarette and turn on the health of the environment

If to quit smoking it is not enough to know that smoking is bad and that every year it kills 7 million people (COVID 19 killed about a million in a year) then let’s think of other reasons that could make us quit, such as saving the Earth. . Yes, because smoking a cigarette is smoking a bit of the planet. In his book Do you have to turn off? (Sonzogno) Giulia Veronesi, director of the robotic thoracic surgery program of the IRCCS San Raffaele Hospital in Milan, tells us about the hitherto unknown dimensions of the smoking phenomenon.

«They have always explained to you that the cigarette increases the risk of lung cancer, and it’s true, very true. And its health effects don’t stop there: that’s why it’s the only product that kills up to half of its regular users, seven million of people each year according to the World Health Organization. This individual perspective, however, risks overshadowing the more general picture: smoking is also bad for those who do not smoke and is one of the number one enemies of sustainable development “.

Veronesi reminds us of 10 reasons to quit smoking, good for ourselves, but also for the environment and for the health of others. Reasons that maybe we didn’t know, or that maybe we knew but we have never explored that much. A Decalogue to keep in mind especially on the occasion of the World No Tobacco Day.

First: save the environment

Together with tobacco and the paper that wraps it, they burn the decimated forests to produce them. “A gray cloud occupies a space that was previously clean air. Smokers, combined, have the same impact on the atmosphere as millions of vehicles, which pollute and emit greenhouse gases, ruining the environment and the climate ». To have a good yield, the tobacco plant must be treated with many pesticides, which end up poisoning the groundwater, and requires the massive use of chemical fertilizers rich in nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus. These substances, in addition to contributing to desertification, reach rivers, lakes and seas, where they favor the growth of algae and plankton (the so-called eutrophication): a process that devastates the aquatic ecosystem, making it inhospitable to many forms of life. The severity of the damage to the environment is summarized in the data of a research conducted in 2018 by a group of researchers from Imperial College London, in collaboration with the WHO: for producing a single cigarette requires 3.7 liters of water, an energy consumption equivalent to 3.5 grams of oil and the emission into the atmosphere of 4 grams of carbon dioxide. The tobacco industry drinks 2.5 times the water needs of the entire population of Great Britain every year, consumes the same energy as Hungary, causes carbon dioxide emissions comparable to that of Israel or Peru.

E i butts? Veronesi says: «It is over one million tons the estimate of the quantity of cigarette butts released into the environment every year “. According to the Ocean Conservancy, the most numerous litter on beaches around the planet is cigarette butts. Which are not biodegradable at all: over time they fragment forming a large part of the notorious ones microplastiche or nanoplastics

Second: say no to economic gaps

If until the 1960s the largest tobacco producers were the United States, today production takes place in the Middle – low income countries, or rather in those south of the world, where the percentage of poverty: here the rights of workers are less protected, if not totally absent. So the tobacco multinationals are and are getting richer, while the producing countries, where growers have wages on the verge of survival, are becoming increasingly impoverished. And the gap social injustice is spreading.

Three: having children at heart

To be employed in the work of the tobacco plantations there are many boys and girls: it is very high percentage of child labor in tobacco fields: at least 60%. Children have no working hours a day, and obviously they are underpaid: in some states in the US, the wage is $ 4 an hour.

Veronesi writes: “A United Nations visit to Malawi in 2013 reported the presence of over 78,000 children employed in tobacco fields, and child labor would have allowed the tobacco industries to save more than ten million dollars in the country between 2000 and 2010 (WHO estimate) ‘.

Four: protect the rights of migrants

Did you know? Also in Italy is grown tobacco, indeed, in Europe we are first for production. This tradition dates back to the nineteenth century and historically involves Puglia, but today it is in Campania which produces a third of all Italian tobacco. In 2019, the British newspaper Guardian denounced that in Italy three of the world’s leading cigarette producers would purchase tobacco leaves collected in part from exploited African migrants, sometimes without documents and therefore without guarantees and rights. Among these also minors, forced to work up to twelve hours a day, without any kind of protection and without health care. According to what was declared by the people interviewed, the pay was less than 3 euros per hour and during work they suffered verbal violence, racial discrimination and did not have access to drinking water.

Five: protect yourself from Covid 19 and boost the immune system

A very important and very topical issue: the cigarette smoking predisposes to more severe forms of COVID19 and heavy smokers are more likely to be hospitalized, go into tension therapy, and die. For Giulia Veronesi «It shouldn’t be a surprise. Smoking increases the risk of developing diseases that we know are dangerous in case of contagion with the new coronavirus: diabetes, coronary heart disease, high blood pressure and respiratory problems “. Also it has a collapse of the immune system, which not only makes us much easier targets for viruses and bacteria, but loses itself the compass: instead of defending the organism, it attacks it thus developing autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, for which smoking is considered a causal factor, or multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease, psoriasis or scleroderma. And the use of the so-called e – cig, or electronic cigarettes, it doesn’t do much goodHowever, these too produce an inflammatory state of the lungs in the lungs which leads to exhaustion of our body’s defenses.

Sei: protect those you love

Okay, maybe your son or boyfriend don’t smoke. But you do, and you are doing them badly, very badly indeed. Why i damage from secondhand smoke they are worse than those who – voluntarily – get a direct smoker. Veronesi also reports objective data for this point: “passive smoking causes in the world every year, among non-smokers, over 350,000 heart attacks, 165,000 deaths from lung infections, 36,000 from asthma and 21,400 from lung cancer”. How to recognize it in practice: it is smoke lateral, what is emitted from the tip of the cigarette between one puff and the next, and only to a lesser extent by the central smoke, which passes through the filter and the inhaler’s lungs. Attention, because there is also the third hand smoke: that is what remains in the rooms after smoking, and is deposited on surfaces and walls. “This means – explains Veronesi – that the particulate matter of carcinogenic and toxic substances continues to interact with people through objects, becoming even more dangerous than the smoke itself”.

Seven: reject manipulations

This point mainly concerns the teenagers and women, and it says a lot about how much the judgment of others weighs on the image we have of ourselves. Boys who smoke often feel more accepted by the group, they go from ‘shy’ to ‘tough’ in the time of lighting a follow. Maybe they don’t like it, but they feel like they have to smoke (and maybe they are the same ones who show with the #savetheplanet banners).

Girls, on the other hand, more often start smoking because of the image of a woman with the chewing gum in the mouth it still conveys an idea – completely distorted – of female emancipation. Which certainly does not pass through a cigarette, on the contrary.

Otto: a world of savings!

“The global price paid to consume tobacco in a year: 1.8 percent of world GDP,” says Giulia Veronesi. That is, including all direct and indirect health costs for mortality and disability deriving from smoking, 1,400 billion dollars a year. If we look only at Europe, the cost of smoking-related diseases corresponds to 12 per cent of total health expenditure each year. If, on the other hand, we simply think about the budget of our wallet, taking into account that an average smoker consumes one pack a day, you will find that you are going to smoke. 150 euros per month (practically the expense is the same even for those who buy kits for electric cigarettes), that in a year they become 1800 euros . A small sum that you could use instead for an annual subscription to the gym, take a spa & wellness holiday, buy an electric car, buy a small plot of land and make a vegetable garden, renovate your house …

Nine: get rid of nico – addiction

It is now proven, nicotine develops addiction (and be careful, both that contained in both ‘normal’ and electronic cigarettes). “Once inhaled, within a few seconds the nicotine enters the bloodstream and reaches the brain, where it binds to the so-called nicotinic receptors, triggering the release of neurotransmitters, the most famous of which are serotonin, known as the good mood molecule. , and dopamine, improperly called the pleasure molecule, with a central role in the reward system ». The result is that the cigarette is associated with a moment of well-being (classic example: lighting a cigarette in moments of stress), well-being from which one becomes employees. To free themselves from this mechanism, the writings printed on the packages (“smoking damages you and those around you”), with which the tobacco multinationals discharge their conscience, are certainly not enough: therefore watch out for addiction, and how many times have you said that 90% of smokers use ‘I’ll stop tomorrow’. Maybe it’s time to put it into practice and …

Ten: Return yourself

That is to find – yes, as it was before starting to smoke. Giulia Veronesi assures us «The more time passes since the last cigarette, the more the body will go back, as if the hands were starting to rotate counterclockwise». And this means finding your breath again, significantly improving the quality of blood circulation, «from one to nine months after quitting, you will no longer cough so often and the annoying congestions will be over: the immune system will be back to working at its best. Skin and hair will be bright and healthy again, breath and body odor will improve ». The anti – aging effect can earn up to ten years of life. And the beauty is that it will also gain the life of the planet.