Nicotine Addiction

Why it is difficult for people to quit smoking? It is known to all that tobacco use can lead to serious health problems and quitting smoking greatly reduces the risk of developing smoking-related diseases. Most of people still could not stop it. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that nearly 20 percent of adults smoke and 70 percent of them want to quit. But only 3 percent of smokers successfully quit for their whole lifetime (CDC, 2015). For last 20 years, researchers have been trying to figure out what were the causes of addiction and solutions for helping to quit. It is believed that people get addicted because of biological factors. However, more and more recent researches showed cigarettes addiction is more …show more content…
Mayo Clinic, a not-for-profit organization, published an article named Nicotine dependence. It mainly talks about the symptoms of nicotine addiction and its risk factors. According to the article, “Nicotine is the chemical in tobacco that keeps you smoking. Nicotine is very addictive when delivered by inhaling tobacco smoke into the lungs, which quickly releases nicotine into the blood allowing it to get into the brain within seconds of taking a puff. In the brain nicotine increases the release of brain chemicals called neurotransmitters, which help regulate mood and behavior” (Matthew Hughes). It explains how nicotine works in our body. Furthermore, the article illustrates the functions of neurotransmitters which led to physical addiction. The way smokers get addicted is fast and uncontrollable. “Dopamine, one of these neurotransmitters, is released in the ‘reward center’ of the brain and causes improved mood and feelings of pleasure. Experiencing these effects from nicotine is what makes tobacco so addictive” (David Juergens). People could not ever change how the neurotransmitter works, or control it. So releasing Dopamine definitely changes smokers’ attitude on smoking——getting more