Our bodies respond faster to a drug that is inhaled, like a cigarette, than a drug that is intravenously injected. The hazardous chemicals contained in smoke from a cigarette can curl, twist, and find its way into delicate tissues all around and inside of the body.
On the outside, cigarettes can ravage the skin by speeding up the natural aging process and causing premature wrinkles. On the inside, the devastation spreads far and wide - not just to the lungs. Carcinogens absorbed in the body from cigarette smoke can stealthily enter cells and turn up the volume of their reproductive cycles until they grow out of control and become cancers.
Sleep patterns can become disturbed by nicotine, as can the mood and even a person's fertility. The risks to the developing fetuses of women who smoke are serious, including sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and decreased birth weight.
And cigarette smoke does not discriminate - it harms everything from the lips that hold the cigarette to the kidneys and bladder, to the bones and the heart.