We have teamed up with QUIT, a charity dedicated to help people stop smoking, to bring you this comprehensive guide to smoking and the terrible consequences it brings.

What is smoking?
Silly question. Maybe. But it’s worth answering. Smoking means sucking smoke into your mouth, then blowing it out – exhaling. OR sucking smoke into your mouth, then drawing it into your lungs – inhaling – then exhaling. When people talk about smoking, they’re normally talking about smoking tobacco. But people smoke various other – mostly illegal – substances, including marijuana (cannabis, draw, pot, dope etc.), crack cocaine (crack) and heroin. Most cigarette smokers – like almost all illegal drug smokers – inhale the smoke into their lungs.

Chemicals in the smoke rush, from the lungs, and from the mouth and throat, to the brain and mess with the chemicals already there. Once you’ve tried a few cigarettes, your brain will start to crave nicotine and, chances are, you’ll be hooked.

Why is QUIT so against smoking?
QUIT just wants people to know what smoking can do. There are smokers all around us. In most families, most schools, most workplaces. In the movies, on the high street; in the pub, on the catwalk. It’s easy to see young, apparently healthy people puffing away and to forget quite how dangerous the habit is. Most of the people who suffer from smoking-related disease are hidden away, trapped at home or in hospital. You probably haven’t (yet) seen what smoking can do first hand. QUIT believes that everybody should be able to make an informed choice: to smoke or not to smoke. If people know all the facts, and they think smoking is worth it, fine.