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Nicotine Essay

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Nicotine

Cigarette smoking has been known for years to impair health of smokers and nonsmokers exposed to smoke in various ways such as by damaging the lungs and circulatory system. Nicotine, present in mainstream and sidestream smoke, is believed to be one of the most toxic components of tobacco. In 1994, David Kessler, commissioner of the FDA, launched an attack on tobacco companies, claiming they deliberately increased nicotine levels in cigarettes. Nicotine has been shown in various experiments to induce tolerance in smokers by its effects on the CNS and dopaminergic receptors. David Kessler believes nicotine to be addictive and desires the FDA to regulate nicotine as any drug such as cocaine. If the agency can prove that nicotine …show more content…

Cleavage of the 2 N or 5 bond yields NNK. These nitrosamines are among the most toxic and are present in both mainstream and sidestream smoke. (F2) They are converted to unstable electrophiles that react with DNA to form mutations which can lead to cancer. More than 300 nitrosamines have been shown to be carcinogenic in one or more of 40 animal species. (F3) It has been shown that a smoker has a greater chance of endogenously forming nitrosamines than a nonsmoker. (F4)

ADDICTIVE EFFECTS OF NICOTINE AND TOLERANCE TO NICOTINE

There is much experimental evidence that nicotine is an addictive drug and that it causes a level of tolerance in lab animals and humans, through its effect on the CNS. For a drug to produce dependence, it must rapidly enter in to the blood steam, must be psychoactive, must readily cross the blood brain barrier and the psychosomatic effects must be related to levels of drug in the brain. All of the above is true for nicotine. Tolerance is when, after repeated doses, a given dose of a

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