Just One Cigarette Starts Damaging The Body

The damage cigarettes do to the body isn’t limited to the one smoking, and it’s not just heavy smokers who are at risk for health effects. Even light smokers, or those occasionally exposed to cigarette smoke via second-hand smoke, are at risk for damage, including heart attacks and asthma. According to US Surgeon General Regina Benjamin, there is no safe level of tobacco smoke exposure.

“You don’t have to be a heavy smoker or a long-time smoker to get a smoking-related disease or have a heart attack or asthma attack that is triggered by tobacco smoke,” said the report. “Low levels of smoke exposure, including exposures to secondhand tobacco smoke, lead to a rapid and sharp increase in dysfunction and inflammation of the lining of the blood vessels, which are implicated in heart attacks and stroke.”

There’s nothing I am more allergic to than cigarette smoke. I’ve never smoked a single cigarette, and I loathe going into environments where people have been chain smoking. Nobody was happier than I was when my city passed a smoking ban; you do what you want to with your lungs, but I want to be able to breathe and not suffer because you want to smoke, thank you.